Correspondent John Thorpe: "Mo Mowlam says the remarks are made by those opposed to the agreement"

Some unionists had suggested the legislation necessary for the implementation of the Good Friday Agreement would lift the 80-year ban on the paramilitary organisation within two years.

Dr Mowlam issued a statement, saying: "Reports that I am preparing to make the IRA a legal organisation are absolutely untrue.

"The Northern Ireland (Sentences) Bill simply provides a means for specifying organisations whose supporters will not benefit from early releases."

The bill, published on Friday, laid out the conditions under which prisoners belonging to paramilitary organisations could qualify for early release.

It stated that only convicts affiliated to groups who have rigidly stuck to their declared ceasefires could hope for parole under the terms of the agreement.

Peter Robinson, deputy leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, said: "The IRA is proscribed, yet in this legislation they would not be deemed a terrorist organisation,"