By Jane Bardon BBC News Online in Belfast

It is hard to treat the statement by jailed members of the Real IRA calling on the organisation's leadership to stand down with anything but scepticism.

One of the first to comment was someone directly affected by the dissident republican organisation's terror campaign in Northern Ireland.

Michael Gallagher's son Aidan was one of the 29 people and two unborn children killed in the August 1998 Real IRA Omagh bomb.

Frustrated that only one man has been convicted in connection with the bombing Mr Gallagher is taking a private court action against those he believes carried it out.

The father of Omagh victim Aidan Gallagher has spoken out

And he has been monitoring the continuing activities of the Real IRA with increasing concern.

"There is a split and we will see these other people moving forward, but the Real IRA army council has not sanctioned this and the numbers of people outside that are involved in the Real IRA are increasing," he said.

"Only last week we saw a number of people arrested in Cork and two months ago they killed a man in Derry/Londonderry."

Split rumours

In their statement the Real IRA prisoners said their organisation's Army Council had "lost its moral authority".

Levelling the accusation that the leaders' motivations were now financial, rather than political, the prisoners called on the leadership to "stand down with ignominy".

Prisoners have always been important to the republican paramilitary groups, but it would be most unusual for a prisoners group to have the authority to disband an organisation.

There have, however, been persistent rumours in recent weeks that the Real IRA was about to split.

In the statement and accompanying briefing given to a journalist with the Dublin-based Sunday Independent, the prisoners said 36 of the 39 Real IRA members in Portlaoise and the five prisoners in English jails had withdrawn their allegiance from the leadership.

Accusing the leadership of corruption, they expressed anger "that army structures throughout the country being used to distribute smuggled merchandise and that the proceeds of these activities are not being used to replenish army finances".

Secretive organisation

While the journalist Liz Walsh said the prisoners admitted during the briefing that Omagh was a mistake and accused the leadership of failing to formulate a clear political strategy, this was not included in the statement, which smacked as much of personal grievances as of ideological differences.

The leaders were felt to be not keeping the prisoners informed and were busy feathering their nests, while activists who had sacrificed their freedom for a cause were languishing in jail, forgotten by all except the occasional 32 County Sovereignty Committee protester and their victims' relatives.

This was a very public statement designed to sting the leadership of a supposedly secretive terror organisation involved in ongoing attempts to bomb, murder and damage people and property.

And why should the prisoners be surprised that the organisation's leaders are creaming off funds from rackets when those of all the other loyalist and republican terror organisations are doing the same?

A Commons Northern Ireland Affairs Committee report said in July the terror groups were making a combined figure of �18m a year from smuggling, extortion and armed robbery.

It said the Real IRA with 'running costs' of �500,000 was making �1.5m a year.

But despite the distraction of cash, the terror groups, and in particular the Real IRA still pose a deadly security threat.

Terror alert

Police in Northern Ireland have been warning in recent weeks that despite recent successes on foiling attacks the dissident threat is at the highest level it has been for several years.

In August the Real IRA was behind a booby-trap bomb attack at a Territorial Army camp in Derry which killed a civilian contractor.

And last month the police stopped a car carrying two Real IRA under-car booby trap bombs across the border from the Irish Republic into south Armagh.

The prisoners emphasised that their statement had been penned before Prime Minister Tony Blair's call this week for republicans to turn their backs on the dual track strategy and for an end to the Provisional IRA and its activities.

The IRA responded by saying it would not accept the "imposition of unrealisable demands".

Splinter groups

It seems unlikely that the leadership of the Real IRA will respond to the demands of its prisoner membership.

A split in the organisation seems more likely - nothing new in republican history.

The Real IRA was born in 1997 as Provisional IRA hardliners, including experiencing bomb makers, rejected Sinn Fein's movement into the political process.

The Provisional IRA was itself formed out of a split from the Official IRA in 1969.

The same has happened in the loyalist organisations, as power struggles threw up leaders like UVF commander Billy Wright, who was expelled to form his own vicious killing team, the LVF in 1996.

And the Ulster Defence Association leadership is still trying to rid itself of Johnny Adair's renegade command in west Belfast.

There always seems to be someone more dangerous and brutal ready to pick up the banner.

In a denial before the accusation, the Real IRA prisoners' statement said "no IRA prisoners' representative has entered negotiations with any government regarding the early release of political prisoners".

It is clear some of the prisoners, reflecting in their cells, want to change track.

But you can guarantee there will be a faction who will not want to follow them.

And that faction is not the one already behind bars.