Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has called on Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou Mc Donald to disband the IRA Provisional Army Council.

It comes after Garda Commissioner Drew Harris said that an IRA PAC still oversees Sinn Féin.

Mr Varadkar said: "Why doesn't McDonald disband the Army Council and the PIRA - or if she cannot - repudiate them and sever all links and do so publically and unequivocally?"

Earlier, Drew Harris agreed with a PSNI assessment that a scaled down military structure still exists and that it is involved in the running of Mary Lou McDonald’s party.

A 2015 report by the PSNI and intelligence agency MI5, commissioned by the British government, found that the IRA still had a “Provisional Army Council”.

It said that Provisional IRA members believe that the PAC “oversees both PIRA and Sinn Féin with an overarching strategy.

“We judge this strategy has a wholly political focus” and that the PAC and PIRA were committed to the peace process.

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It also said that some PIRA members are involved in the storage of remaining weaponry.

The PSNI told the Irish Times that it’s assessment has not changed.

Sinn Féin rejects the analysis by the PSNI.

Ms McDonald has repeatedly insisted that there are no shadowy figures overseeing the party saying: “nobody's pulling my strings”.

Mr Harris this afternoon said: “I am aware of the PSNI and British security service’s assessment and we do not differ from that view.”

A Sinn Féin spokesperson this evening said: "It will be lost on no one that this nonsense is being repeated again the day after a vote in the Dáil where, for the first time ever, someone other than a Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael nominee won the most votes for Taoiseach."

Online Editors