Sinn Féin, the IRA's political wing, and the Democratic Unionists engaged in mutual recrimination yesterday in the wake of Wednesday's announcement by the British and Irish governments that they had not been able to secure agreement on a restoration of power-sharing in Northern Ireland.

The IRA, in a statement in An Phoblacht, the Republican newspaper, said the DUP's demand that the IRA be filmed decommissioning its arms dumps was "never possible", and accused Ian Paisley, the DUP leader, of using it as "an excuse for his rejection of an overall agreement".