The internal dynamics of the INLA brought about a lot of structural conflict. The INLA during the late 1970s through the mid-1980s can be characterized as an inter-organizational war in which there were several conflicting opinions regarding what the central ideology of the organization should be. In effect, this caused numerous attempts for power by members and furthermore, fractionalization within the INLA. When the OIRA murdered the founding leader of the INLA, Seamus Costello, in 1977 the fight for power began. Around 1984 Torney was one of a number of leading INLA members in Belfast to be imprisoned on the evidence of "supergrass" Harry Kirkpatrick. During the absence of Torney and the other leaders the INLA in Belfast came under the command of Tom McCartan, a close ally of Dominic McGlinchey. Under McCartan the Belfast INLA moved into extortion and racketeering, damaging their popular support and opening up the possibility of a wider feud with the Provisional Irish Republican Army, which controlled much of the Belfast rackets. McCartan and the increasingly "anti-social" direction taken by the group under his leadership was met with anger by Torney and the others held in prison and led to a factionalisation of the INLA in prison. One group under Gerard Steenson favoured liquidating the INLA altogether, a second under John "Jap" O'Reilly, to which Torney belonged, favoured reform of the organisation and a third, loyal to Tom McAllister, vacillated between Steenson and O'Reilly.