Maria Gatland, the Cabinet minister for children's services and adult learning at Croydon Council, has said she was the author of To Take Arms: A year in the Provisional IRA in 1972 under her maiden name Maria Maguire.

She has also been suspended from the council's Conservative group pending an investigation.

Cllr Gatland's book was described in a review in Time magazine in 1973 as a kiss-and-tell story about her relationships with the IRA leadership.

It was written after she fell out with the Provisionals.

Cllr Gatland, 60, was born in Dublin and elected to Croydon Council in 2002.

It is understood that the council knew nothing of her background until she called leader Mike Fisher following a council meeting on Monday night and said she was resigning.

At the meeting, Dr Peter Latham had referred to her as "Councillor Maguire" during a session which allowed members of the public to ask a supplementary question to written questions they had submitted.

He said the reason he had got mixed up was because he had been reading a book about the IRA which she might have heard about as she was Irish.

A spokesman for Croydon Council told the News Letter that the news of Ms Gatland's past had "come as a complete shock to Croydon".

He said: "Officers understand she has been urged to resign from the council. Urgent steps have been taken to immediately replace her as the children's services portfolio holder."

The spokesman added that the council wanted to make it "emphatically clear" that it had no prior knowledge of her background "which had been concealed from her former colleagues in the Conservative majority group".

DUP MP Gregory Campbell said last night that Ms Gatland's "belated admission to whatever activities she was involved in would be more welcome if she were to issue a statement indicating the error of her ways and apologising for whatever hurt she would have been involved in".

He also called on Ms Gatland to "explain how she came to make the transition from an extreme left-wing" viewpoint which supported a "murder campaign" to becoming a member of the Conservative Party.

He said that if that explanation was given along with an apology, then "she would be setting a good example to others".

Ulster Unionist MLA Danny Kennedy said that the proper course of action had been taken, and an "honest admission after all these years was to be welcomed".

But he said that although the incident involving Ms Catland had taken place over 30 years ago, "it must be remembered that over the years the IRA has caused much hurt and despair throughout the community in Northern Ireland".