Northern Ireland Security Minister, Ms Jane Kennedy, has said the UDA cannot be considered to be on ceasefire until it renounces violence and racketeering. Ms Kennedy said action and not words were required of the group which has been blamed recently for a number of hoax bomb alerts and attacks in the North.
Ms Kennedy said: "In terms of their ceasefire, we need actions, not just words, before we can respond."
She said: "Pipe bombs and politics are incompatible: that is an unequivocal message."
Ms Kennedy made her comments after meeting representatives of the UPRG, Ulster Political Research Group, which speaks on behalf of the UDA, at Castle Buildings today.
The meeting came a following a decision by loyalists at Maghaberry to call off a hunger strike after only 72 hours. The prisoners were protesting for segregation from republican prisoners in the prison.
Some loyalist prisoners have wrecked their cells as part a campaign for segregation and the UDA has been blamed for recent hoax bomb alerts and attacks on the homes of staff at the jail.
UPRG spokesman Mr Frankie Gallagher said today's meeting had been positive, but added there was growing frustration that the government would not recognise the UDA ceasefire.
The rising tension has prompted the UPRG to warn the group's ceasefire could break down. "I've made it clear to the UPRG, and I want to make it clear to the wider community... that attacking prison officers' homes, or hoax bombs at schools and elsewhere, or engaging in drugs or organised crime, none of that is acceptable," said Ms Kennedy.
A sectarian campaign of pipe bomb attacks on Catholic homes prompted the then Northern Secretary of State, Dr John Reid to declare the UDA ceasefire over in late 2001.
Since then the group has been riven by murderous in-fighting and criminal activity, but last February it declared a 12-month ceasefire and said it wanted to re-engage in politics. Four killings during 2003 were linked to a feud within the UDA. The last sectarian killing claimed by the group took place when a 19-year-old Catholic Mr Gerard Lawlor was shot dead in July 2002.