Initial Responses
Although the police initially refused to be drawn as to who might be involved, a number of commentators including journalist Kevin Myers writing in the Daily Telegraph quickly blamed the Provisional IRA, saying that only it had the wherewithal to conduct such a professional operation in the province. One senior police officer quoted in The Guardian newspaper said: "This operation required great expertise and coordination, probably more than the loyalist gangs possess".
Investigations were conducted by the Police Service of Northern Ireland. On 7 January 2005 Hugh Orde, the service's Chief Constable, issued an interim report in which he blamed the Provisional IRA for the robbery. The British and Irish governments concurred with Orde's assessment, as did the Independent Monitoring Commission (the body appointed by the Irish and British governments to oversee the Northern Ireland ceasefires). Sinn Féin, however, denied the Chief Constable's claim, saying the IRA had not conducted the raid and that Sinn Féin officials had not known of or sanctioned the robbery. Martin McGuinness said that Orde's accusation represented "nothing more than politically-biased allegations.... This is more to do with halting the process of change which Sinn Féin has been driving forward than with anything that happened at the Northern Bank". Bertie Ahern, the Irish Taoiseach, on the other hand, said that "an operation of this magnitude... has obviously been planned at a stage when I was in negotiations with those that would know the leadership of the Provisional movement".
On 18 January 2005 the Provisional IRA issued a two-line statement denying any involvement in the robbery: "The IRA has been accused of involvement in the recent Northern Bank robbery. We were not involved".
Despite this denial of involvement from the Provisional IRA, and others by its supporters, it has been widely believed in Northern Ireland, especially in unionist and loyalist circles, that the raid was the work of the IRA, and intended by them as a means of securing a pension fund for its active service members, who have been largely unemployed since the promulgation of the Good Friday Agreement.
Read more about this topic: Northern Bank Robbery
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