There is no evidence of the Provisional IRA army council meeting or functioning in the Republic of Ireland, but those linked to it continue to associate with each other, a garda assessment of the republican group has found.
A significant number of former IRA members have joined dissident groups and others are involved in criminality for personal gain, the assessment said.
It also said such defections have resulted in acrimony and attacks by former close associates on one another amidst an atmosphere of suspicion and derision.
It points out that dissident groups have their origins in the Provisional IRA and dissidents use the reputations they acquired as members of the IRA.
They make full use of their legacy reputations and in some cases terrorist tactics and also have access to weaponry, the assessment said.
In the past five years, gardaí said, they have arrested and charged 70 people with terrorist offences - none of them were current members of the PIRA but 33 were former members who had defected to dissident groups.
The report concludes that the garda's assessment and intelligence is fully in line with that of the Independent Monitoring Commission and no information has emerged in this report to call into question the findings of the IMC.
The assessment of the IRA was published by Minister for Justice Frances Fitzgerald this afternoon.
Minister Fitzgerald said: "it is important for those of us who have been committed all our lives to democratic principles to make one thing clear: the legacy of PIRA is appalling and those with whom they were inextricably linked cannot shirk their responsibilities in relation to it.
"Nor is it acceptable on any part of this island, for whatever purposes, to seek to retain the substance or the shadow of a gunman.
"Both assessments raise deeply troubling issues about PIRA and the legacy of paramilitarism", she said.
