The North's Secretary of State has ruled out suspending the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Theresa Villiers says Stormont is becoming "increasingly dysfunctional" because relationships between the major parties have almost "completely broken down".

Ms Villiers says it is also important that the latest round of talks in Belfast conclude with a full agreement that all paramilitary organisations are dissolved.

The Northern Ireland Secretary has told the House of Commons that serious consideration needs to be given to setting up a body similar to the Independent Monitoring Commission (IMC).

The IMC was tasked with monitoring paramilitary activity in Northern Ireland up until 2011.

Ms Villiers made the comments amid the latest Stormont crisis, sparked by the murder of Kevin McGuigan in Belfast.

"The remit the parties might want to give to such a  body is likely to be different to those addressed by the original IMC ... but there might well be scope for such a body to play a part in providing community confidence and repairing working relationships within the executive," she said in the House of Commons.

The British Government meanwhile is thought to be considering bringing back independent monitors to examine paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland.

It comes after the PSNI said they believe that IRA members may have been involved in the murder of Kevin McGuigan in Belfast.