Newly released government documents have exposed the deep concerns held by British officials in the wake of the audacious Northern Bank robbery in Belfast, with fears that the heist's mastermind would evade justice.
High-Stakes Talks After the Heist
The revelations come from a confidential memo detailing a meeting between British and Irish officials at Downing Street on 5 January 2005, just weeks after the raid. The files, released from the National Archives in Dublin, show both governments grappling with the fallout from the theft of £26 million from the bank's Belfast vaults in December 2004.
Then Prime Minister Tony Blair's chief of staff, Jonathan Powell, told the meeting that British authorities were "pretty certain that it was the IRA" behind the robbery. He stated the operation was carried out by individuals "very close to the Sinn Fein leadership".
The Elusive 'Top Man' and Political Fallout
Despite hopes that the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) would make arrests, Powell expressed a specific fear. He worried the 'top man' behind the sophisticated robbery would be "clever enough to avoid being arrested".
The officials anticipated significant political backlash. Powell expected the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) would "go on the rampage" once PSNI Chief Constable Sir Hugh Orde publicly attributed responsibility. The assessment from the Irish side, presented by civil servant Michael Collins, was that the IRA remained a unified organisation and the robbery was not a "solo run".
Collins found it "almost incomprehensible" that the heist was planned while Sinn Fein leaders were engaged in sensitive peace negotiations.
Peace Process 'Price' and Decommissioning Demands
While both governments agreed the robbery should not derail the peace process, they conceded it had drastically altered the landscape. The confidential note records that "the republican movement had knocked up the price" for progress.
Jonathan Powell emphasised that, while the theft was a "serious set-back", Tony Blair was "not prepared to give up on the process". However, the deal now required something "categoric on criminality". Two key issues became outstanding: paramilitary criminality and achieving transparent decommissioning of weapons.
The British government's priority, as stated in the talks, was ending paramilitary activity and crime, not decommissioning alone. Powell also clarified that the UK would not demilitarise in direct exchange for IRA decommissioning, but would scale back its military presence in Northern Ireland as part of general "house-keeping".
These historic documents, filed under reference 2025/127/90, provide a stark behind-the-scenes look at the crisis that tested the Northern Ireland peace process following one of the UK's largest ever bank robberies.
