The body, set up under the Fresh Start Agreement in 2015, has published its first report, which notes that paramilitarism “remains a stark reality of life in Northern Ireland”.

It welcomes “the good start that has been made overall” on the implementation of the 43 recommendations included in the Northern Ireland Executive’s Action Plan on tackling paramilitary activity.

“However,” it adds, “there continues to be a number of areas where in our view not enough is being done, or not being done quickly enough”.

The commission said: “The major and obvious impediment to the task of full implementation of the Fresh Start provisions on ending paramilitarism is the continued absence of political decision making in Northern Ireland for close to two years. This has had an adverse impact on the implementation process.

“Nonetheless, that work of implementation goes on and we detail in our report the wide range of activities underway.

“We are under no illusion about the scale of what is involved in achieving the goal of ending paramilitarism but we believe that in this Fresh Start process, there is a credible pathway towards it. The task for everybody – Government and society – now is to ensure that the opportunity involved is grasped to the full.”

Ireland’s Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney said the report is “another reminder of the importance of getting the power-sharing Executive and Assembly in place again to address the issues of most importance for people in communities across Northern Ireland”.

He added: “On behalf of the Irish Government as a co-guarantor of the Good Friday Agreement, I will continue to work with the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and the leaders of all of the political parties in Northern Ireland to seek to support a way forward that can secure the necessary agreement on a new Executive as soon as possible.”