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IRA 'dormant, not dead'

03/09/2008

The independent monitoring commission has published its latest assessment of the state of the Irish Republican Army (IRA).

The report concludes the paramilitary organisation remains in existence but in a dormant state. It signals a marked shift from previous reports, which have said it poses little, rather than no, threat.

The IRA's "leadership structures have definitively ceased to function as they did" the report said.

In a comprehensive analysis of the organisation, the report stresses the paramilitary function of the IRA "by design is being allowed to wither away".

The army council remains, but it has "completely relinquished the functions necessary for armed conflict".

Democratic Unionist party (DUP) leader Peter Robinson wants the IRA to be fully disbanded before he supports the devolution of law and order powers to Stormont.

The power-sharing coalition between it and Sinn Fein has recently become more troubled, analysts say, because of the issue.

But there is a widespread assumption the DUP is privately looking for a compromise.