165 Deputy Tony Gregory asked the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform further to Parliamentary Question No. 981 of 24 of September 2008, if a group (details supplied) was a splinter group of the IRA. [33069/08]

As indicated in my reply to Parliamentary Question No. 981 of 24 September 2008, the group to which the Deputy refers appears, from the information available, to have been in pursuit of a subversive agenda which was motivated as much by a militant, socialist and anti-establishment analysis as by purporting to advance any other agenda. It is in the nature of many subversive and criminal groups that the allegiances of their membership tend to be unstructured and motivated as much by self-interest as by any particular philosophical impetus. I have no information available to me to suggest that the group in question had any structured relationship to any other subversive or other organisation.