TOTAL IRA disarmament is a mirage, it was claimed yesterday.

The IRA may already have carried out a major new act of disarmament in order to restore Northern Ireland’s power-sharing government, a Unionist said tonight.

A councillor’s decision to quit Sinn Fein has shown that many republicans face a dilemma of conscience over IRA weapons decommissioning, Sinn Fein’s member of the southern Parliament said today.

Republicans are the only people who can secure a lifting of the ban on Sinn Fein ministers attending cross-border body meetings, an Ulster Unionist minister insisted today.