Minister for Justice Michael McDowell yesterday welcomed the Independent Monitoring Commission's (IMC) latest report which found that the IRA has abandoned terrorism and violence.
Mr McDowell said the positive IMC assessment, together with Sinn Féin's decision to support policing and the criminal justice system in Northern Ireland, means that there should now be no more delay in the restoration of a full-devolved government to Northern Ireland.
"I urge the parties involved, for the good of the people they represent, not to allow this opportunity to slip from their grasp," he said, adding that the DUP must now address the new situation in line with the understanding in the St Andrews agreement.
Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny and Labour Party leader Pat Rabbitte also welcomed the IMC report findings.
Mr Kenny said he hoped the report will act as a further boost in the ongoing efforts for the full restoration of devolved government.
"I now hope that the decision taken by Sinn Féin at the weekend will lead to real co-operation in the investigation of criminal activity so that, as outlined in the report, the individual IRA members still benefiting from crime are brought to justice."
Mr Rabbitte said he welcomed the report, especially its relatively positive assessment of the Sinn Féin decision to endorse the PSNI and the IRA's move away from paramilitarism.
Northern politicians greeted the IMC report positively, however, Sinn Féin continued to criticise the organisation.
Northern Secretary Peter Hain said the report is proof that Northern Ireland is "a different place".
Mr Hain said: "Since [the IRA announced the organisation was standing down in July 2005] the IMC has published a series of reports and has given its assessment which chart the process of peace being followed by the republican leadership and records the seismic shift which has occurred.
"This report removes the final, major impediment to the restoration of stable and lasting devolution in Northern Ireland," he said.
UUP leader Sir Reg Empey said it is clear that IRA violence belongs in the past.
"With regards to loyalist paramilitaries I would encourage them to quicken the pace of change to ensure a complete and unambiguous commitment to exclusively peaceful means," he said.
DUP deputy leader Peter Robinson welcomed the report, although he said it leaves "a number of issues to be addressed, particularly the involvement of IRA members in criminal activity". Unionists "overwhelmingly reject" any terrorist activity, whether it is committed by loyalists or republicans, he said.
SDLP leader Mark Durkan said it was essential that everybody now faces up to the threat posed by loyalists. "Now is the time for the governments to deliver them a clear choice: wind up or shut down," he said.
He said dissident republicans have nothing to offer Ireland but "hardship and suffering".
Sinn Féin's Conor Murphy said the IMC operates outside the terms of the Good Friday agreement and should have no role in the political process. "Regardless of what this unelected and unrepresentative quango says or does, Sinn Féin will continue with our positive agenda of attempting to ensure that the powersharing and all-Ireland institutions are put back in place," he said.