After the original deadline for decommissioning - May 2000 - passed, the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning set 30 June 2001.
The crisis hit its climax in July 2001 as David Trimble, the Ulster Unionist Party leader, resigned as first minister of the power-sharing Northern Ireland Executive in protest against the IRA failure to redeem its pledge to put its weapons "completely and verifiably beyond use" (he was later re-elected) [REF].