This article is from the source 'guardian' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/sep/07/northern-ireland-assembly-meets-first-time-pira-killing

The article has changed 3 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 1 Version 2
Northern Ireland: assembly to meet for first time since PIRA killings Northern Ireland: assembly to meet for first time since PIRA killings
(35 minutes later)
The Northern Ireland Assembly is to meet for the first time since a crisis over the IRA threatened the power-sharing institutions. The Northern Ireland assembly at Stormont is to reconvene amid deep uncertainty over whether the devolved institutions will survive the week.
The Democratic Unionists (DUP), the largest party at Stormont, has unsuccessfully sought a four-week adjournment after police said members of the Provisional IRA (PIRA) shot a man dead in east Belfast. The Democratic Unionist party is expected to outline its response to police allegations that the Provisional IRA still exists and was behind last month’s revenge murder of the ex-republican prisoner Kevin McGuigan.
The DUP has promised it will not be business as usual when assembly members return from their summer break on Monday. Intensive talks launched by the British and Irish governments are due to begin later this week. Stormont’s finance minister and DUP assembly member, Arlene Foster, said on Monday that it would “not be business as usual” once the regional parliament opens after the summer recess.
The issue of who was responsible for the Kevin McGuigan murder will be raised , with a Sinn Féin motion condemning both his killing and the death of former Belfast IRA commander Gerard “Jock” Davison back in May.
Related: David Cameron called into Stormont talks over renewed IRA activityRelated: David Cameron called into Stormont talks over renewed IRA activity
Politicians are due to debate a Sinn Féin motion condemning the murders of former IRA members Jock Davison and Kevin McGuigan, and calling on anyone with information to pass it on to the police. McGuigan was accused by former comrades of killing Davison in the Market area of central Belfast – a charge McGuigan’s friends and family deny. The pair had fallen out nearly a decade ago after Davison ordered that his one-time IRA colleague receive a punishment shooting.
Police have insisted the IRA is not back on a war footing but the disclosure that the organisation still exists has rocked an already divided political establishment. However, McGuigan’s family and republican sources in Belfast insist that PIRA members who are loyal to Sinn Féin’s political programme carried out the murder in August.
The British government has decided to legislate on welfare reform in Northern Ireland if the Stormont parties cannot reach agreement. One of the weapons used to kill McGuigan was a semi-automatic rifle, which has raised the question over whether the PIRA decommissioned all its weapons in 2005. In that year, the PIRA put a large arsenal of its weapons and explosives beyond use in front of independent observers, including two Irish clergymen.
The Democratic Unionists and Sinn Féin have been at loggerheads over the issue for months and the devolved administration in Belfast has been plunged into financial peril. But one of the world’s leading experts on the IRA, award-winning author Ed Moloney, has claimed there is evidence to suggest a quantity of weapons, including rifles, were kept over by the republican movement for self-defence purposes.
The talks are planned for this week at Stormont House with the secretary of state, Theresa Villiers, representing London and the foreign affairs minister, Charlie Flanagan, Dublin. On his website, The Broken Elbow, Moloney quotes anonymous sources close to the George W Bush administration in 2005 who noted that IRA arms were retained and “not just small arms”.
The purpose is to secure full implementation of the agreement and to deal with issues arising from the impact of continued paramilitary activity in Northern Ireland, Downing Street has said. Talks between all the parties represented in the assembly will start on Tuesday but claims that the PIRA kept a number of weapons and may be still intact as an organisation will further pollute an already toxic atmosphere between unionists and republicans.
The move came after the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) offered a new assessment of PIRA activity stating that aspects of the terror organisation have gone away, its active service units no longer exist and what remains fulfils a radically different purpose than during the Troubles. George Hamilton, chief constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), has stressed that although the PIRA has some structure still in existence its leadership and membership is committed to the peaceful political path pursued by Sinn Féin.
Both the Irish government and the Democratic Unionists support a new form of paramilitary monitoring of the ceasefires. In his assessment of the Kevin McGuigan murder, Hamilton said the PSNI believed that the killing was not sanctioned at a leadership level within the PIRA.
The breakdown in relations at Stormont reached a new low after the killing of the former IRA member Kevin McGuigan, allegedly by former terror associates. Attempts to save devolution from collapse over the uproar caused by the McGuigan murder have been complicated over the issue of welfare reform in Northern Ireland.
That murder earlier this summer caused political uproar after the PSNI chief constable, George Hamilton, said the IRA, supposed to have gone away a decade ago, still exists for peaceful purposes and the shooting was carried out by individual PIRA members and not sanctioned at a senior level. Over the weekend Northern Ireland secretary, Theresa Villiers, said central government might bring in reforms to the region’s public sector, which makes up more than 60% of the local economy. Rows over welfare have resulted in the Northern Ireland executive being unable to set a budget.
Sinn Féin and the SDLP oppose the welfare cuts drawn up in last year’s Stormont House agreement. Unionists claim the nationalist parties reneged at the end of last year on that original agreement, which accepted, among other things, that up to 7,000 civil servants would be made redundant.
Because of the two nationalist parties’ opposition to welfare reform, the Northern Ireland executive has been unable to set a budget this year.
Martin McGuinness, deputy first minister of Northern Ireland and Sinn Féin chief negotiator during the peace process, has said that the party will oppose any moves by Westminster to impose the welfare cuts.