The IRA Army Council was the decision-making body of the Provisional Irish Republican Army, more commonly known as the IRA, a paramilitary group dedicated to bringing about the end of the Union between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom. The council had seven members, said by the British and Irish governments to have included Gerry Adams, the president of Sinn Féin. The Independent Monitoring Commission declared in 2008 that the council was "no longer operational or functional".[1]
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The IRA was a proscribed organization under the terms of the Offences Against the State Acts in the Republic of Ireland and under equivalent anti-terrorist legislation in the United Kingdom, making membership of it a criminal offence. In the Republic, conviction for membership is possible in the Special Criminal Court, where three judges hear cases without a jury, on the evidence of a Garda superintendent or higher rank, and carries a maximum penalty of five years' imprisonment.
Senior members of Sinn Féin, some of whom, according to both the British and Irish governments, have sat on the Army Council, together with IRA members not known to be involved in illegal activities, have been effectively immune from prosecution in recent years in order to enable progress in the peace process.
On 14 January 2005, Martin Ferris (Sinn Féin party, TD for North Kerry) was accused of being a member of the IRA Army Council in an article in The Irish Times written by journalist Kevin Myers. In the same article, Myers also accused members of Sinn Féin who had visited Downing Street in December 2004, which included Gerry Adams, of sitting on the Army Council.
On February 20, 2005, Irish Justice Minister Michael McDowell publicly named Ferris, Gerry Adams, and Martin McGuinness MP, Sinn Féin's chief negotiator, as members of the Army Council during a radio interview.[2] The three men issued a statement the next day denying the charge.[3]
On 27 July 2005, Michael McDowell expressed his belief that Adams, McGuinness, and Ferris had recently (i.e., within the previous few days) left the IRA army council. However he also claimed that it was his opinion that this by itself did not necessarily amount to a permanent split between the two organisations.
In 1985, The Sunday Times named Thomas "Slab" Murphy as a prominent IRA member. Although Murphy denied the allegation, in 1998 he lost his resulting libel case against the newspaper.
At the General Army Convention in May 2005, The Sunday Times reported that the following changes were made to the IRA Army Council:[4]
The Sunday Times reported in July 2005 that security sources believed that the current Army Council consisted of:[5]