The Ulster Unionist Party deputy leader, Mr John Taylor, has made a strong plea to loyalist paramilitaries to refrain from returning to violence.
He warned the UVF that breaking the ceasefire would give a "fragment of respectability" to the IRA in nationalist communities. The vast majority of unionists did not want the UVF to descend to the level of the IRA, he added. "Let me say in plain language that a return to violence from that quarter would be politically wrong, morally wrong, and economically wrong," he said.