THE IRA uses Sinn Fein’s Northern Ireland headquarters to hold high-level meetings and to plan terrorist operations and financing, security sources have said.

The IRA’s Belfast Brigade has until “very recently” gathered at Sinn Fein’s Connolly House headquarters in republican West Belfast, where Gerry Adams has met international peacemakers such as Desmond Tutu, the Archbishop of Cape Town, and American congressmen, intelligence officials said last night.

Members of the IRA’s Belfast “Command”, its head of intelligence and one of the most hardline IRA figures in Northern Ireland had held meetings in the Sinn Fein headquarters at Andersonstown they said.

One senior source told The Times: “Connolly House was always the focus point of both IRA and Sinn Fein meetings, though they were cute enough to have other meetings at different places that we weren’t aware of.” He said that at the meetings, known IRA figures would discuss “everything from forthcoming operations to who was moving to what position”.

The claims will be seized upon as further proof that Sinn Fein has refused to cut its links with the IRA. The fact that until recently the building has been used for terrorist business will cause outrage among law-abiding Unionists and nationalists.

Mr Adams, the Sinn Fein president, handed a 5ft-long listening device to Tony Blair last autumn after it was discovered at Connolly House. The source said: “I don’t think they (Sinn Fein) knew about it (the bug because we got some great stuff there. We wouldn’t have got permission to put that device in there if terrorists weren’t holding meetings there.

“Even when it came to election time, they used the military machine — the Belfast IRA — for whatever needed to be done to help out, whether putting up posters or providing security.”

Sinn Fein’s troubles intensified yesterday when Paul Murphy, the Northern Ireland Secretary, announced proposals to strip it of the £500,000 Commons expenses paid to the party’s four Westminster MPs.

He also confirmed that Sinn Fein’s £120,000 Stormont allowances, stopped last spring after the IRA’s alleged involvement in an abduction, would continue to be suspended for another year. Mr Murphy told the Commons that the penalty was intended to convey the Government’s “strong disapproval” after the IRA’s alleged involvement in a £26.5 million bank raid.

Ian Paisley, the leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, described the decision to suspend Sinn Fein’s expenses — which will be put to a vote next week — as an “insult”, given claims this week by Michael McDowell, the Irish Justice Minister, that Mr Adams and Martin McGuinness were members of the IRA’s ruling Army Council.

David Trimble, the leader of the Ulster Unionists, urged Downing Street to revive power-sharing without Sinn Fein.

Mr Adams and Mr McGuinness have both denied claims that they are IRA leaders.

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