GERRY ADAMS stood with men and women in paramiliary uniform yesterday after Justice Minister Michael McDowell had accused him of being on the IRA's army council. He told a rally in Strabane, Co Tyrone, that republicans were not criminals. "No republican worthy of the name can be involved in criminality of any kind," he said.

GERRY ADAMS stood with men and women in paramiliary uniform yesterday after Justice Minister Michael McDowell had accused him of being on the IRA's army council.

He told a rally in Strabane, Co Tyrone, that republicans were not criminals. "No republican worthy of the name can be involved in criminality of any kind," he said.

Some of those listening to him wore army-style combat uniforms. Others wore black berets and dark glasses.

Mr McDowell named the West Belfast MP along with Sinn Fein's chief negotiator Martin McGuinness and Kerry North Sinn Fein TD Martin Ferris as members of the IRA's seven-man army council.

He said: "We're talking about a small group of people, including a number of elected representatives, who run the whole (republican) movement.

"We're talking about Martin McGuinness, Gerry Adams, Martin Ferris and others."

Mr McDowell publicly voiced what has been known to Garda intelligence for several years.

His statement was echoed later by Foreign Affairs Minister Dermot Ahern. Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, however, kicked to touch and claimed he did not know who was on the army council.

The other four members of the council currently are the IRA's chief of staff, Tom 'Slab' Murphy, who lives on the Louth-Armagh border, another man from south Armagh, one from Belfast and one from Donegal.

Martin McGuinness said the claim that he was a member of the army council was totally false.

Mr Ferris has recently denied a similar claim and Mr Adams denies that he has ever been a member of the IRA.

The Taoiseach will chair a security summit tomorrow to formulate Government plans on how to tackle the Provisional movement's refusal to sever the link with terrorism and crime.

In advance of the summit, an era of unprecedented cross-border police co-operation will be launched in Belfast when Mr McDowell and Northern Secretary Paul Murphy sign a deal that will allow senior members of the Garda and PSNI to be seconded to the other force for up to three years in key command posts.

The exchange of personnel was a major proposal emanating from the Patten Commission on policing reform in the North but had been sidelined as the Irish and British governments tried to sort out the dilemma created by the refusal of Sinn Fein to join the Northern police boards.

However, official policy on the Provisionals will now change dramatically in both jurisdictions in the wake of the Northern Bank robbery in Belfast and its link with the IRA financial network exposed last week by the Garda.

The "softly, softly" approach has now been dumped by the two governments. Mr Ahern and his Cabinet will discuss how it should be replaced immediately after the security summit tomorrow.

Also due to attend the summit are Tanaiste Mary Harney, Foreign Minister Ahern, Justice Minister McDowell and Defence Minister Willie O'Dea.

They will be briefed on the Garda operation smashing the IRA's main money laundering network and the emergence of further proof linking it to the robbery and confirming that Sinn Fein remains connected to the IRA at the highest levels of leadership.

The briefing will be provided by Garda Commissioner Noel Conroy, Deputy Commissioner Fachtna Murphy and other senior aides.

Meanwhile, further garda raids were carried out at the weekend including a raid on a premises near Rahan, Tullamore, Co Offaly as detectives followed up leads that have emerged since the initial spate of arrests in the middle of the week.

Most of the emphasis in the coming weeks will be placed on sifting through the thousands of documents and computer disks to unveil the extent of the IRA'S financial structures and then chasing the money trail as it stretches around the island to Britain, mainland Europe and to the United States.

Forensic and other tests on the huge sums of money recovered by, and handed in to, the gardai in the past few days are expected to support the other evidence available to the two governments confirming the link between the Belfast robbery and the money laundering operation.

Gardai believe it was the size of the bank haul that was ultimately responsible for exposing its top secret laundering scheme.

The operation had been set up to deal with a regular supply of illegal cash through a plethora of investments and scams.

But the sheer scale of the robbery and the volume of hard cash that it generated was too much for the structures and they collapsed.

The decision of the Northern Bank to replace its currency also placed an almost impossible deadline on the Provisionals to launder all of the money and their financiers became careless as they tried to offload as much as they could before the cash became useless currency.

- Tom Brady andSenan Molony