Police backing 'signals end of IRA paramilitarism'

Sinn Féin’s decision to endorse the police service in the North is a major step forward in the IRA’s move away from paramilitarism, a report said today.

As Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and British prime minister Tony Blair prepared to review in Downing Street their plans for reviving devolution, the Independent Monitoring Commission (IMC) gave a glowing assessment of how the Provisionals had abandoned terrorism and violence.