Prominent republican Danny Morrison was last night (Wednesday) at the centre of a complaint from a member of the public to the police after admitting he had been a member of the IRA.
It is understood that a senior police officer is to respond directly to a letter of complaint received by police over Mr Morrison's admission in his latest book entitled All the Dead Voices.
Last night a police spokesman stressed that this was not a formal investigation of Mr Morrison.
In his book, launched last November, Sinn Féin's former director of publicity admitted for the first time that he was a member of the IRA and had once controlled an arms dump.
He described growing up in west Belfast and explained the circumstances which led him to join the IRA.
As a teenager Mr Morrison, now a full-time writer, sold copies of Republican News and stressed in his book that during the early days of rioting he was a bystander "not a participant".
However in July 1970, aged 17, he "decided to go one step further" and agreed to store IRA weapons under his bed.
In his book the republican said he still had "qualms about many aspects of IRA activity".
However, he continued: "Any moral resistance I had to violence was being rapidly undermined by the actions of the British army and the RUC during and after the introduction of internment." He later went on: "I was pulled increasingly towards the IRA and their fundamentalist position, and it was more with relief than fear that I took the plunge." Last night Mr Morrison said: "What I have said in the book stands."
