The plug will finally be pulled on the Stormont Assembly if a working administration is not formed in Belfast by the end of March, the Irish and British governments warned tonight.

The courts need to get tough on people who attack members of emergency services when they are answering calls, a Northern Ireland Assembly member claimed today.

A four-member commission to monitor paramilitary ceasefires is a “sticking plaster solution” to keep the Good Friday Agreement intact, an MP said tonight.

Unionist and loyalist politicians were today heading to South Africa for talks aimed at producing a single unionist vision for Northern Ireland’s peace process.