Police smash IRA spy ring

IRA intelligence-gathering in Belfast has been smashed open by one of the biggest police investigations in Northern Ireland in the last decade, it was claimed last night.

Senior detectives probing the alleged republican spy ring inside the Government said they had breached the inner sanctums of the movement.

As a Stormont civil servant questioned in connection with the inquiry was suspended on full pay, the scale of the anti-terrorist operation was laid bare.