FROM BELFAST

SENIOR NEW IRA leaders were shocked to find how many of their own volunteers’ personal details were contained within the recent leak of officers’ personal details from the Police Service of Northern Ireland.

“It looks like more New IRA personnel are employed by the PSNI than are available to continue any war in Ireland,” says a businessman with links to the Republican dissidents. “Indeed, I understand there’s a note in the leaked documents from one senior police officer to another, telling him to turn any more informers away. ‘The PSNI budget just can’t carry any more of them’, the note states.

“The New IRA leadership can’t do anything about it because of the numbers. And if you count these informers and such in, it could be argued that the PSNI now has more Catholics than Protestants working for it. That should please some people in Dublin and London.”