Paramilitaries must disappear if public confidence is to be restored in Northern Ireland's system of government, a unionist MP insisted tonight.
After his party met the commission tasked with monitoring ceasefires, Democratic Unionist MP Mr Gregory Campbell welcomed British prime minister Mr Tony Blair's warning to republicans that the IRA must be wound down if devolution is to work in Northern Ireland.
The East Derry MP said: "We are not interested in what the IRA say rather what they do.
"The IRA must engage in serious and substantial acts of completion so that all parties come to the table on the same basis and operating as equals.
"There is no place in a democracy for private armies and true democrats should depend solely on the force of their mandates not the force of their guns."
Devolution has been suspended in Northern Ireland since October 2002 when allegations about an IRA spy ring threatened to destroy the power sharing executive.
Two attempts to revive devolution failed last year amid Ulster Unionist concerns over the IRA.