They've been laying it on thick in the last week. Until recently Sinn Féin could claim Michael McDowell was on a solo run, using the republican movement as a punch bag to ensure his own electoral survival. Not any more. Over the weekend he was joined by minister of defence Willie O'Dea and minister of foreign affairs Dermot Ahern.
Yesterday (Tuesday) in the House of Commons our proconsul had his chance to have a go at Sinn Féin, though the British administration here seems to have decided that it's more powerful to leave the main onslaught to Irish politicians in case verbal attacks from British ministers rally support for republicans.
In the context of this general assault the remarks of Willie O'Dea are the most striking. Obviously writing with the approval of the Cabinet he said: "We are no longer prepared to accept the farce that Sinn Féin and the IRA are separate. They are indivisible. The two governments will not indulge in the pretence of treating Sinn Féin and the IRA as two separate organisations."
Since Irish ministers are not acting on recently acquired information but on the contrary all admit that they have been tolerating IRA activities of a certain nature for years, the obvious question is why now? Why have they decided not to play along with the republican fiction they have indulged for so long? One answer is of course the Northern Bank robbery. It's not just the robbery though – it's the time that's in it.
Some people say the IRA decided to put into action their existing plan to rob the bank once it was clear the deal planned for December 8 was off. They reckoned there would be nothing before the autumn as local and general elections loomed. By the autumn everyone would be back round the negotiating table again, the robbery forgotten just as Makro, Gallahers and others had been. It was an opportunity not to be passed up.
Whether or not that was the explanation behind the IRA's actions, the opportunity of months absent of political developments cuts both ways. The Irish government has clearly decided to take full advantage of the vacant period to force an end to the phase of the peace process which should have been completed five years ago, namely decommissioning and the removal of the IRA from the equation. As Bertie Ahern told the Dail, three major efforts in 2002, 2003 and December 2004 had failed.
Now he's telling the republican movement to act unilaterally. The message from Dublin is that they have no bargaining counters left. Far from the IRA being an advantage, it's a millstone round the neck of republicans.
No-one, and certainly not the DUP, will join them at a negotiating table while the IRA remains in business, or should that be in finance?
It's hard, maybe impossible, for republicans to see this but what Bertie Ahern and his ministers are doing queuing up to take a poke at Sinn Féin leaders, is trying to make it easier for Adams and McGuinness to convince their movement that the IRA must retire from the field and become an old comrades association.
We now know that the 'new mode' promised in the IRA statement of last December did not mean the IRA was being stood down. We also know that until the IRA does stand down there will be no movement on policing here. Indeed, if the DUP had the wit to see it, Sinn Féin's endorsement of the PSNI and their appearance on the Policing Board with government approval will provide the crucial evidence that the IRA has stood down.
Why? It would be preposterous for the IRA to continue its activities if senior republicans were on a Policing Board charged with stopping IRA activities.
Clearly that could not happen.
Throughout all this drama the taoiseach has tried to keep republicans' eyes on his target. While openly repeating his allegations that the Sinn Féin leaders he was negotiating with knew of IRA plans, he has taken every chance to repeat that he wants a comprehensive agreement that includes Sinn Féin. In other words, last December's deal is still available but only republicans can make it happen.
In the meantime, to concentrate their minds, the gardai and Criminal Assets Bureau will set about dismantling the IRA's financial structures built up since the late 1970s and laying bare the linkages within republicanism.
One embarrassing revelation will follow another in the coming months. The strategy is obvious. To compel the republican movement's leaders to stand down the IRA because its existence destroys their credibility, or in Willie O'Dea's words, face the 'imminent danger of losing the political momentum and support they have gained in recent years'.
