Sinn Fein has had £440,000 of party funding taken away as punishment for its suspected involvement in the raid on the Northern Bank headquarters in December.

House of Commons allowances have been withheld from the party's four MPS for a year following  reports from the Independent Monitoring Commission and Northern Ireland's chief constable, Hugh Orde, who both blame the IRA for the robbery.

Also on Thursday, a Northern Ireland opinion poll suggested Sinn Fein's sustained electoral advance may have stalled and that almost half of Sinn Féin's voters believe the IRA should now disband.