A DUP Assembly member was ordered to leave the Chamber this morning after claiming that the Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams had played a leading role in the IRA in the 1970s.
North Belfast MLA Nelson McCausland claimed Mr Adams led the IRA in Belfast in 1972 when he set up two secret units whose role was to kill suspected informers and dispose of their bodies.
Mr Adams has refuted the allegation.
Mr McCausland was applauded by party colleagues as he left the Stormont chamber having been given a one day ban for refusing to withdraw the remarks.
He had made the claim during a debate yesterday on the so-called 'disappeared', those who were killed by republican paramilitaries during the Troubles and whose bodies have yet to be recovered.
This morning, Assembly Speaker Willie Hay said allegations of criminal behaviour had been made against another member which were very clearly denied and refuted by the member concerned.
Mr Hay said he regarded the remarks as being unparliamentary and then called on Mr McCausland to withdraw them.
But the DUP member responded that his statements had been based on extracts from an Ed Moloney book, 'A Secret History Of The IRA', which he said was available in bookshops and in the library of the Assembly.
He said he would therefore not be withdrawing the statement. Mr McCausland was then ordered to leave the chamber and banned from today's Assembly proceedings.
Yesterday Mr Adams said he denied and refuted the assertions made against him by Mr McCausland.
He said republicans who had information about the so-called 'disappeared' had passed it on to aid the recovery of bodies and would continue to do so.
He said the IRA, for its part, had apologised for the grief it had caused. He also said he believed the IRA had provided a full disclosure of all the information available to it and republicans continued to work diligently on what he said was an important and heartbreaking issue.
