THE BRITISH government has told loyalist paramilitary groups it will extend special legislation to facilitate decommissioning by 12 months - but no more than this.
Portraying this move as a last chance, Northern Secretary Shaun Woodward called for the UDA, UVF and others to deal with their illegal arsenals.
Announcing he would seek parliamentary approval to extend special measures into 2010, Mr Woodward said: "We have hit the end of the track . . . society in Northern Ireland has moved on."
His warning follows other British government warnings that opportunity was slipping away for loyalists to decommission their weapons more than 14 years after they first declared a ceasefire and expressed their "abject and true remorse" for the hurt caused by their campaigns.
Legislation facilitating the decommissioning of paramilitary weapons expires in February 2009 and is usually re-examined by MPs at Westminster annually.
Well-placed security sources have indicated to The Irish Times that patience was running out and that the British government was being pressed to state that the opportunity to decommission was not open-ended.
The announcement, contained in papers laid by the government before the House of Commons yesterday, that a further 12 months would be made available for the loyalists to move on the issue, surprised at least one source who believed a much shorter timeframe should have been allowed.
Recent reports by the ceasefire monitor, established by the British and Irish governments, have continued to highlight the threat posed by dissident republicans and also by further splintering of the UDA.
Progress on the weapons issue was described by the Independent Monitoring Commission as disappointing in its last survey.
The body warned that fragmentation of the UDA, with the so-called southeast Antrim brigade now virtually a self-contained paramilitary force in the area, made the challenge of weapons decommissioning even more difficult.
• Loyalists were responsible for leaving blast bombs near a children's play area in south Belfast yesterday, police said.
Four devices, described by the PSNI as "viable", were left near a cycle park in the Donegall Road area of the city close to the main Belfast-Dublin railway line.