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| Northern Ireland government on brink of collapse | Northern Ireland government on brink of collapse |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| Northern Ireland’s power-sharing government is on the brink of collapse after the Democratic Unionists failed to win enough support to adjourn the Stormont assembly. | Northern Ireland’s power-sharing government is on the brink of collapse after the Democratic Unionists failed to win enough support to adjourn the Stormont assembly. |
| Unless the prime minister, David Cameron, exercises powers to adjourn the regional parliament, the DUP has said it will quit the coalition government. | Unless the prime minister, David Cameron, exercises powers to adjourn the regional parliament, the DUP has said it will quit the coalition government. |
| Related: Northern Ireland's political crisis: the key questions answered | |
| Northern Ireland’s first minister and DUP leader, Peter Robinson, warned on Wednesday that only an adjournment – to allow emergency talks to take place over police claims that the IRA still exists – would stop him pulling his ministers out of the coalition in Belfast. | Northern Ireland’s first minister and DUP leader, Peter Robinson, warned on Wednesday that only an adjournment – to allow emergency talks to take place over police claims that the IRA still exists – would stop him pulling his ministers out of the coalition in Belfast. |
| But on Thursday Robinson and the DUP failed to persuade the smaller nationalist party, the SDLP, to back their adjournment motion. | But on Thursday Robinson and the DUP failed to persuade the smaller nationalist party, the SDLP, to back their adjournment motion. |
| The DUP and the Ulster Unionist party are protesting over police claims that individual IRA members killed their former comrade Kevin McGuigan in Belfast last month. | The DUP and the Ulster Unionist party are protesting over police claims that individual IRA members killed their former comrade Kevin McGuigan in Belfast last month. |
| The unionists say the IRA’s continued existence and allegations that they are still in the business of killing enemies is a major breach of an agreement nearly a decade ago that led to power sharing with Sinn Féin. | The unionists say the IRA’s continued existence and allegations that they are still in the business of killing enemies is a major breach of an agreement nearly a decade ago that led to power sharing with Sinn Féin. |
| The Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams said: “The decision of the [assembly’s] business committee is a very, very clear democratic reiteration of the integrity of these institutions and of the need and the wish for these institutions to continue the work which we were all elected to do on behalf of citizens in this state and across this island.” | |
| Robinson issued his ultimatum on Wednesday after the arrest of three senior republicans, including Sinn Fein’s northern chairman Bobby Storey, over McGuigan’s murder. The men remain in custody. | |
| Police have said current members of the IRA were involved in last month’s shooting of McGuigan in a suspected revenge attack for the murder of former IRA commander Gerard “Jock” Davison in Belfast three months earlier. | |
| The revelations about the IRA have heaped pressure on Sinn Féin to explain why the supposedly defunct paramilitary organisation is still in existence. | |
| The Executive cannot function without the DUP, the region’s largest unionist party. However, if the party resigns its ministerial posts the institutions will not fall immediately, as the party will be given seven days to renominate ministers. | |
| If no renominations materialise then the power-sharing Executive will collapse, prompting the prospect of snap elections or a lengthy spell of direct rule. | |
| The Ulster Unionists have already resigned from the Executive, claiming trust in Sinn Fein has been destroyed, but unlike the DUP they did not have the electoral weight to bring the institutions down by leaving them. |