Republicans who broke away from Sinn Féin 20 years ago are to challenge Gerry Adams' party in at least 11 constituencies in the forthcoming Stormont Assembly Election.

Efforts to secure an end to the IRA’s campaign ultimately proved fruitless, writes Ryle Dwyer.

Taoiseach Bertie Ahern explained yesterday that the Government made it clear to the Sinn Féin leadership that there had to be clarity in further discussions on such matters as decommissioning, paramilitarism, and criminality.

The man famed for finding ways out of the toughest disputes chose to resign his high-profile positions, writes Political Reporter Michael O’Farrell.

The position on a Government body of a union troubleshooter embroiled in today’s massive money laundering probe was in doubt tonight, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern said.

Sinn Féin will use centenary celebrations next year to embark on a major recruitment drive on both sides of the border, it emerged today.

DR GARRET FitzGerald, in his address to the MacGill summer school, contends essentially that if the situation in the six counties had been left to the SDLP in the early 1970s, a civil rights-type solution could have been achieved.

The most senior police officer in Derry told a businessman that the British army decided to shoot civilians to lure the IRA into a gun battle on Bloody Sunday, it was claimed today.

Phil Flynn, trade union boss-turned business troubleshooter has a proven track record in solving industrial disputes. He now heads the Government’s controversial decentralisation strategy. KYRAN FITZGERALD reports.

RUAIRÍ Ó BRÁDAIGH of Republican Sinn Féin (president, no less) should get it through his head that 98% of the people of this island want nothing to do with his mock-republicanism, or with his party's flying the Real and Continuity IRA's flags of convenience.

IN his speech to the Sinn Féin Árd Fheis last weekend, Gerry Adams was reported as saying: "No matter how daunting, tedious and frustrating this process may be for the governments and the rest of us, there is no alternative way forward."

One of Ireland’s most hard-line republican politicians today claimed the current suspension of the Northern Ireland Assembly marked “the chronic instability of English rule in Ireland“.

One of Ireland’s most hard-line republican organisations, Republican Sinn Féin, staged their annual conference in Dublin today.

THE Labour Party is turning its back on neutrality and deserting public service workers by backing the Nice Treaty, the Green Party said yesterday.