THE Northern Ireland peace process was thrown into disarray last night after the Province’s most senior police officer blamed the Provisional IRA for last month’s £26.5 million bank robbery in Belfast.

Unionist politicians called for Sinn Fein, the IRA’s political wing, to be excluded from a bid to restore power-sharing in the Province after Hugh Orde, Chief Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, said that the Provisionals were behind what he called “the largest theft of waste paper in living memory”.

Speaking after mounting speculation that the IRA had carried out the raid on the Northern Bank in central Belfast six days before Christmas, Mr Orde said that the robbery, in which two bank employees were taken hostage, had been “a violent and brutal crime . . . not some Robin Hood effort”.

Brushing aside claims by Sinn Fein that his comments were politically motivated, he said: “On the basis of the investigative work we’ve done to date . . . in my opinion the Provisional IRA were responsible for this crime and all main lines of inquiry currently undertaken are in that direction.”

He added: “A huge amount of work has gone into this inquiry. It’s a major investigation, one of the biggest we have undertaken in Northern Ireland.

“It has national and international implications. We have gathered a huge amount of intelligence.

“This was not a victimless crime. Two families were abducted and people were threatened with death to comply with the kidnappers.”

Mr Orde’s blunt assessment of the IRA’s involvement in the robbery, the biggest all-cash robbery in history, means that a deal between the Province’s two political extremes of Sinn Fein and Ian Paisley’s Democratic Unionists is now further away than ever.

It comes just weeks after the two parties appeared to be on the brink of a once unthinkable deal to restore powersharing in the Province, which has been suspended for more than two years after the exposure of an alleged IRA spy ring inside the Northern Ireland Office.

Paul Murphy, the Northern Ireland Secretary, described the latest crisis in Belfast as “deeply damaging”. He said that London and Dublin would have to “reflect carefully on how to take matters forward to sustain the substantial progress that has been made”.

Downing Street said that the Prime Minister had made it clear devolution could only be restored to Northern Ireland if there were a “complete end” to all paramilitary and criminal activity. Martin McGuinness, Sinn Fein’s chief negotiator, revealed that “a very senior person” in the IRA had denied the terrorist group’s involvement in the robbery. Mr McGuinness questioned Mr Orde’s credibility and said that his remarks were “politically biased”.

How the robbers will launder the money is unclear. The Northern Bank said that it would withdraw most of its current notes and reissue them in a different colour and style.

Ian Paisley, the DUP leader, called for republicans to be barred from attempts to restore devolution in Northern Ireland. He said that they had “done a deed that has put them outside the present political initiative”. For their part, ordinary republicans believe they are being demonised when the IRA was apparently turning its back on violence.

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