Legislation to suspend the Northern Ireland Assembly amid the deepening crisis over paramilitary arms decommissioning will be rushed through the House of Commons on Tuesday.

The government announced its move as republican splinter group the Continuity IRA claimed responsibility for the bomb attack on a hotel in County Fermanagh on Sunday, and warned it would continue its "war effort".

Leader of the House Margaret Beckett told MPs that all the Commons stages of the controversial legislation would be completed in one day to allow the Bill to procede to the Lords and reach the Statute Book before the end of the week.

The announcement, confirming plans laid by Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Mandelson last week, means that the political institutions achieved through the peace process will be effectively frozen unless last-ditch talks can find a way through the arms impasse.

Northern Ireland's political leaders have been renewing efforts to achieve a breakthrough following the weekend's bomb attack, which added further pressure to the peace process.

On Monday, Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams met the Northern Ireland secretary at Castle Buildings, Stormont.

Speaking before the meeting, Mr Adams said it was the first meeting he had had with Mr Mandelson for a few days.

He said he believed the current crisis over decommissioning was based on a bogus premise against a background of what he called both negatives and positives.

On Sunday, seeking to distance mainstream republicanism from the bombing, Mr Adams said that he "unequivocally condemned" the Sunday night attack and called on the Continuity IRA, the only republican group not on ceasefire, to disband.

Other political leaders denounced the bombing and unionists said that it proved that an "armed peace" without decommissioning of the illegal arsenals was untenable.

Northern Ireland secretary Peter Mandelson described the bombing as an attack on the wishes of the people and added that he was maintaining contact with political leaders to try to avoid a suspension of the assembly.

Legal proceedings

The move to suspend the assembly comes after Mr Adams and Northern Ireland's First Minister and Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble held a crisis meeting at the weekend to discuss decommissioning.

The Ulster Unionists have said they cannot continue in government with Sinn Fein, the political wing of the IRA, unless there is paramilitary disarming.

Mr Trimble, who is meeting party leaders on Monday night, pledged that he would resign from the leadership of the nine-week old assembly if decommissioning had not begun by the end of January.

The government's planned suspension of the assembly is designed to prevent Mr Trimble's resignation which, it is feared, would trigger a collapse of the Good Friday Agreement, if not the peace process itself.

At the same time, Sinn Fein threatened a legal challenge to a suspension of the assembly and the IRA issued a weekend statement saying that decommissioning would "not be advanced by British legislative threats".

Bomb attack

The bomb attack on Mahon's Hotel in Irvinestown occurred after telephone warnings were given to media organisations in Belfast.

No one was injured in the explosion but security forces estimate that the bomb contained between one and two kilograms of a "high explosive" yet to be identified.

In an article in Monday's edition of the Irish News, a nationalist newspaper, the leader of the Social Democratic and Labour Party John Hume called on the IRA to decommission some Semtex explosive as a symbol of its good intent.