THE IRA has effectively disbanded as a paramilitary force with the army council no longer functional, peace process watchdogs declared yesterday.

Three men were arrested today in connection with the murder of Paul Quinn, who was lured into a cattle shed close to the border and beaten to death last year.

ONCE again Tom Cooper (Letters, November 22) dons his dark green glasses when writing to defend extreme nationalism.

A PSNI officer was shot in the chest in Dungannon, Co Tyrone, yesterday in the second attack of its kind in the North in less than a week.

An off-duty policeman was shot and wounded outside a school in the North today.

REPUBLICAN groups such as the INLA and the Continuity IRA are engaged in serious crime in the Republic, a new report claims.

WITH the latest imprimatur of the International Monitoring Commission (IMC) conferred on the IRA, combined with the decision of Sinn Féin to support the police and the criminal justice system in the North, it was hardly unexpected that it was described as the removal of the “final impediment” to devolution.

SINN Féin leaders yesterday predicted they would at least double the party’s haul of TDs to 10 at the General Election.

The Irish and British governments will attempt to end the political deadlock in the North next month with intensive new talks in Scotland.

THE IRA is committed to peace, despite some of its leaders remaining deeply involved in crime, ceasefire watchdogs yesterday reported in a move which brought power sharing closer.

THE International Monitoring Commission (IMC) expressed concern yesterday that paramilitaries are using some neighbourhood justice schemes in the North as cover to control communities.

The Irish and British governments will begin new talks with all sides in the North next week in a bid to get the troubled peace process back on track.

BRITISH Prime Minister Tony Blair will make his first official visit to Ireland in almost two years next Thursday as part of a renewed effort to restore devolution to the North.

TAOISEACH Bertie Ahern yesterday said he hoped to see the suspension of the Northern Assembly and executive lifted in 2006, and “the earlier the better.”

Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Hain vowed today that community restorative justice schemes in the North would be run through the police and not “outside the rule of law”.

The Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, has said that all the security information he has received suggests Republicans are disassociating themselves from crime.

Foreign Affairs Minister Dermot Ahern today said he was confident the IRA would carry out a full and complete decommissioning of its arsenal.

A campaign of intimidation by IRA men against the family of murder victim Robert McCartney is intensifying, his sister claimed today.

The Police Service of Northern Ireland has said that 10 officers had been injured during the latest night of violence in Belfast and other parts of the North.

STEPHEN PAUL, who was shot dead in Belfast on Saturday, was a father at 14.

AN early act of decommissioning by the IRA, possibly this weekend, could pave the way for talks aimed at restoring devolution in the North beginning as early as September.

No matter how much Sinn Féin may denigrate the report of the International Monitoring Commission (IMC), both the Irish and British governments believe its import.

SINN FÉIN would be in jeopardy of losing €800,000 in annual funding from the State if proposed changes to the Electoral Act are accepted by the Government.

THERE is no prospect of Sinn Féin being involved in the business end of politics after the exposure of a huge money laundering racket being linked to the IRA, Labour leader Pat Rabbitte said yesterday.

Political Editor Harry McGee warns the fires from the IMC report may be uncontrollable

Deric Henderson

Harry McGee, Political Editor

US President George W Bush will exclude all Northern political parties, including Sinn Féin, from the traditional St Patrick’s Day reception in the White House because of the Northern Bank robbery.

Irish opposition parties will today seek all-party support for a landmark Dáil motion calling on the Republican movement to abandon all violence and fully embrace democracy.

THE Government will argue for the inclusion of Sinn Féin at the White House St Patrick’s Day ceremony despite the round of denunciations the party will face later this week.

SINN FÉIN president Gerry Adams yesterday sought to shift the focus of attention away from the Northern Bank robbery fallout in advance of the publication of the latest International Monitoring Commission’s (IMC) report this week.

Harry McGee, Political Editor

EVEN if the IRA to take the advice of Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny and announce a unilateral decommissioning of its arms, it is a moot point whether it would improve Sinn Féin’s currency with both governments and the other Northern Ireland parties.

GARDA Commissioner Noel Conroy will accompany Taoiseach Bertie Ahern when he meets British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Tuesday.

THE IRA must give unequivocal and independently verified commitments that it has severed all links with criminality, the Government insisted yesterday.

David Trimble’s Ulster Unionists have become increasingly irrelevant to the political process during negotiations to revive power-sharing in Northern Ireland, one of its former MPs claimed tonight.

Sinn Féin has lodged papers in the High Court in Belfast challenging the Northern Secretary’s decision to take sanctions against the party in the wake of the International Monitoring Commission (IMC) report.

FORMER justice minister Michael Noonan has accused the government of “slithering” away from a commitment that the killers of Garda Jerry McCabe will not be released early from jail.

THE Progressive Democrats yesterday rejected Fine Gael’s suggestion that Liz O’Donnell’s outspoken behaviour was a stunt paving the way for her to run in the European elections.

Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams is expected to be highly critical of the International Monitoring Commission during a speech to Dublin Chamber of Commerce this morning.

SENIOR Sinn Féin politicians face the prospect of being publicly outed as leading members of the IRA by the International Monitoring Commission.

LEADING members of Sinn Féin are operating at the highest echelons of the IRA, according to an international group monitoring peace in the North.

DUNBLANE-STYLE gun controls should be introduced in Northern Ireland as part of efforts to deal with legally and illegally held weapons, Sinn Féin argued yesterday.

Sinn Féin has called for stronger gun controls in the North in an effort to deal with legally and illegally-held weapons.