The future of Northern Ireland’s power-sharing Executive will come under renewed scrutiny today after Sinn Féin tabled an urgent Assembly question about the Robinson controversy.

Allowances for office costs, food and travel at the North's Assembly are to come under the microscope, it was announced today.

Politicians in Derry are blaming dissident republicans for the murder of a 38-year-old man in the city overnight.

The North’s First Minister was today accused of misleading the Stormont assembly – a claim, if upheld, that could force his resignation.

The speaker of Stormont will host his first ever official St Patrick's Day reception this evening.

The Northern Assembly’s governing body launched a fresh effort today to make a decision on whether to ban a controversial Stormont memorial for an IRA woman shot dead by the SAS in Gibraltar.

The Ulster Unionists and SDLP have become problem parties at Stormont, Martin McGuinness insisted today.

The Social Development minister tonight said she would not be bullied by Northern Executive colleagues over funding for loyalists in the North.

Leinster House plays host to another political milestone today with a visit from the speaker of the Northern Ireland Assembly.

It could have been a humdrum day in any parliament, with low-key speeches in a hushed, panelled and pillared room.

DUP leader Ian Paisley and Sinn Féin’s Martin McGuinness today became the North’s First Minister and Deputy First Minister after taking the pledge of office.

The new speaker of the Northern Ireland Assembly will be the Democratic Unionist Party’s William Hay.

Northern politicians will today embark on a new era of power sharing as the Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness are sworn in as First and Deputy First Ministers.

The DUP and Sinn Féin were making significant gains in the Northern Ireland Assembly Elections.

The DUP’s William Hay yesterday created electoral history when he became the first member of his party to top the poll in the nationalist dominated Foyle constituency.

Sinn Féin could contaminate policing and justice if the party gets control over it in a devolved government, a hardline Democratic Unionist said tonight.

Nearly €13m has been spent on the latest police inquiry into Belfast solicitor Pat Finucane’s murder, it was revealed tonight.

Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams was today comfortably elected in the British parliamentary elections in the North.

Politicians and community leaders are setting up a group to liaise with police in the Waterside area of Derry after the attempted murder of a young man this week.

Buses carrying Orangemen back from Twelfth of July parades have reportedly been stoned by crowds in Counties Antrim and Derry.

Loyalist paramilitaries were today blamed for a gun attack on a house in Derry which left a woman showered with glass.

A republican facing a police murder charge will not be extradited from the Republic of Ireland provided the INLA’s five-year ceasefire holds, it was claimed today.

Feuding loyalist paramilitaries were behind a bomb attack on a house in Derry, it was claimed tonight.

Ian Paisley’s Democratic Unionists are split over whether they should deal with Sinn Fein, a rival claimed today.

BRITISH Prime Minister Tony Blair must make a decision soon on whether to restore devolved institutions in Northern Ireland if the planned elections to the Stormont Assembly are to go ahead, Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble said yesterday.

Ian Paisley’s Democrat Unionists will engage with Sinn Fein sooner or later, a senior republican claimed today.

Tony Blair must make a decision soon on whether to restore devolved institutions in Northern Ireland if the planned elections to the Stormont Assembly are to go ahead, Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble said today.

A senior member of the Rev Ian Paisley’s hard-line Democratic unionists today held out the prospect of the party cutting a deal with Sinn Fein.

Ulster Unionist MLA Billy Armstrong has called on the DUP to "stop playing party politics and start working for the good of all the people of Northern Ireland".

The Orange Order in Portadown has rejected suggestions that it should follow another order's lead and talk to residents' groups over the Drumcree march.

Orangemen today condemned restrictions imposed on a controversial parade in a flashpoint area of west Belfast.

The RUC is investigating the possibility that last night's murder in Derry was linked with drugs.