The arms decommissioning announcements by Northern Ireland’s two Protestant paramilitary organisations were welcomed on Sunday as another important milestone in the province’s return to normal politics.

The Rev Harold Good, a Methodist pastor approved by the IRA to witness the decommissioning of its arsenal four years ago, said: “We can now look forward knowing that the paramilitary organisations have declared to themselves, to each other, and to all of us, that their war is over.”