UK government to publish review into paramilitary activity in the North

An independent report on paramilitary activity that is set to make or break power-sharing in the North will be published by the British government.

The review of republican and loyalist terror group structures and their involvement in criminality was ordered by Northern Ireland Secretary Theresa Villiers in the wake of a murder linked to the IRA.

UPDATE (9.30am): Taoiseach Enda Kenny says he will consider the report in full ahead of its publication in London this afternoon.

"No haven't yet, but I'm going to get a briefing from the Minister for Foreign Affairs now," he said.

"I think Secretary Villiers is speaking in the (House of) Commons around noon, so we expect to receive the report in the next 30 minutes to so."

A police assessment that members of the IRA were involved in shooting dead Kevin McGuigan, 53, has brought Stormont's ruling coalition executive to the edge of collapse, with all but one of its unionist ministers having walked out, claiming trust in Sinn Féin has been eroded.

The administration has limped on, with many departments shorn of continuous ministerial leadership, while crisis political talks involving the five main parties and the British and Irish governments have tried to find resolution.

But the negotiations have effectively been in a holding pattern pending the outcome of the review of paramilitarism.

Ms Villiers will outline the findings in a statement to the House of Commons later.

The three members of the panel asked to conduct the exercise were former independent reviewer of UK terror laws Lord Carlile of Berriew; Rosalie Flanagan, a former permanent secretary at Stormont's Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure; and Northern Ireland-based QC Stephen Shaw.

The Democratic Unionists have been reinstating and then removing a number of its Executive ministers in an ongoing cycle, to prevent the resigned posts being reallocated to other parties.

While the DUP has defended the political manoeuvring as a necessary response to the crisis, critics have denounced the party for leaving departments, in particular health, without leadership.

Senior DUP figures have indicated a willingness to fully re-engage with power-sharing if they find the report's findings acceptable.

Ex-IRA man Mr McGuigan was shot dead in Belfast in August in a suspected revenge attack for the murder of former IRA commander Gerard "Jock" Davison, 47, three months earlier.

Detectives believe some of Mr Davison's associates suspected Mr McGuigan of involvement in his shooting.

Before the McGuigan murder, the future viability of the administration had already been in doubt as a consequence of long-standing budgetary disputes, with the row over the non-implementation of the UK Government's welfare reforms the most vexed.

Last December, many of the North's political problems seemed to have been resolved when the five parties and the two governments signed off on a deal titled the Stormont House Agreement.

However, that accord has been in danger of unravelling over the welfare reform issue.

The fallout from the McGuigan shooting and the other rows besetting power-sharing have all been on the agenda in the continuing crisis negotiations at Stormont House, Belfast.