SF 'has stronger claim on ministerial seat than PUP'

Northern Secretary Peter Hain has said Sinn Féin is in a stronger position than the PUP to demand seats in any new power-sharing Executive at Stormont.

Mr Hain was responding to the furore surrounding PUP leader David Irvine's decision to join the UUP's Assembly group in order to ensure a unionist majority of any Executive that might be formed.

The move means the UUP is entitled to an extra ministerial seat at the expense of Sinn Féin, but the DUP is now refusing to enter any Executive with the UUP as the PUP is the political wing of the Ulster Volunteer Force.

Speaking in Belfast today, Mr Hain said Sinn Féin had more right than the PUP to be part of any Executive because the IRA was actually making moves towards going out of business.

"The UVF have not ended their paramilitary campaign, they are still involved in criminality in a big way and all of these things are things which the IRA have promised to deliver and is delivering on," he said.