There is a "decent prospect" of reaching an agreement which will allow elections to go ahead in Northern Ireland, the prime minister has said.

Addressing journalists Tony Blair said he hoped to make an announcement on elections to the devolved assembly within weeks.

After nearly a year of stalemate in the province, the prime minister said the government now intended "to move this thing forward".

The prime minister said he hoped to proceed with a "background of agreement" between rival parties.

"We are working hard now and will do in the next few weeks to achieve that agreement," he said.

"We have come very close but failed the last couple of times to get agreement."

Securing an end to violence and progress towards the restoration of self-government was "tremendously important" for Northern Ireland.

"This situation there is transformed... but that progress could be put at risk if we don't get a proper political framework," said the prime minister.

Blair's intervention came as the government unveiled plans to establish a new body monitoring paramilitary activity in the province.

The prime minister said the new body would be of "enormous value" in restoring unionist confidence in the peace process.

And the Northern Ireland secretary also said the monitoring body would "play a valuable role in helping to provide assurance that the necessary moves towards a genuinely peaceful and democratic society with stable devolved government that we want to see are real and permanent".

"The international agreement we are publishing today makes clear what the functions of the commission will be and how it will be expected to go about its work," Paul Murphy added.

"We hope to formally ratify it and pass the necessary legislation at Westminster as soon as possible."

The membership of the four-strong commission includes Richard Kerr, a former deputy director of central intelligence in the United States.

The other members are John Grieve, formerly a senior officer in the Metropolitan Police, Lord Alderdice, the first presiding officer of the Northern Ireland Assembly and Joseph Brosnan, the former secretary general of the Department of Justice in Ireland.