The future of the IRA's ruling Army Council was due to be revealed on Wednesday with the publication of a critical report to the British and Irish governments.

Earlier this year the two governments asked the Independent Monitoring Commission, which includes former CIA Deputy Director Dick Kerr, to report on the continued existence of the IRA's ruling body.

Previous IMC reports have confirmed that the IRA has decommissioned its arsenal and disbanded its organization.

However, Unionist politicians have highlighted the continued existence of the organization's ruling Army Council and warned there would be no transition of policing and justice powers to the Stormont Assembly until it was disbanded.

Ironically, the IMC has previously insisted that it had been necessary for the Army Council to remain in existence in order to ensure a safe transition from a paramilitary organization to peace.

However, earlier this summer the IMC said it believed that the IRA leadership was now close to achieving its goal of a complete transformation to politics.

"Relinquishing the leadership structures appropriate to a time of armed conflict is the signal that they have emerged at the other end of the process," it said.

"In so far as IRA is concerned, we assess that in practice this transformation is all but complete."

However, Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) leader and First Minister Peter Robinson has insisted that Unionists would not tolerate the continued existence of the Army Council, and that any failure to disband could block further political progress.

"The people of Northern Ireland want to see the tail-end of the IRA, they want to see it gone," he said. "They want to see it gone forever."

The latest IMC report is expected to say that the Army Council still continues to exist but has not formally met in recent times and is not believed to pose any military threat.

To date none of the Loyalist paramilitary organizations have decommissioned any of its weapons.

In recent months Republican dissidents have made repeated attempts to kill police officers.