This is quite true. Gerry Adams says in "Before the Dawn" that internment mostly affected veterans of the 1956-1962 Border Campaign. By 1971, many of them had drifted from republicanism, but they found themselves locked up without trial nine years later nonetheless, while almost all of the younger, active PIRA was not picked up.
This is generally true of any intelligence outfit - if a group is not actively killing people or causing large-scale property damage and havoc, the intelligence gathered is usually several years out of date. -- _______________________________________________ Find what you are looking for with the Lycos Yellow Pages http://r.lycos.com/r/yp_emailfooter/http://yellowpages.lycos.com/default.asp?SRC=lycos10