DAN KEENAN
GERRY MORIARTY
SINN FÉIN patience over the delay in the devolution of policing and justice "will run out", the party has warned.
West Belfast Assembly member Alex Maskey issued the warning as relations between Sinn Féin and the DUP worsened over the continuing impasse over the devolution of justice powers.
Mr Maskey's warning followed a speech by DUP leader and First Minister Peter Robinson in which he said Sinn Féin's position on the Executive deadlock was "obscene".
Sinn Féin has angrily rejected a DUP claim that the two parties had agreed a voting system for the selection of a justice minister which effectively gives the DUP a permanent veto.
Mr Maskey told BBC Radio Ulster at the weekend: "We know that the public's patience will run out on this, as our own party's patience will run out on this."
Mr Robinson had earlier attacked Sinn Féin's "destructive and self-seeking tactics".
It is "obscene" that Sinn Féin is continuing to block meetings of the Northern Executive, he said. He warned that "this abnormal situation" cannot continue if the Executive is to maintain public confidence.
"Sinn Féin are undermining community confidence in the institutions," he said in Montjoy Orange Hall near Omagh.
And against concern that failure to break the deadlock could trigger Assembly elections, he warned: "They risk bringing about a state of disillusionment within the wider community that may prove permanent and irrevocable."
Mr Robinson said it was "immoral" that Sinn Féin would "seek to frustrate and stymie" the business of government.
"At a time when people are suffering and looking to their elected leaders to help them, it is obscene that Sinn Féin is preventing the Northern Ireland Executive from fulfilling its legal functions in the fullest and most far-reaching way."
Sinn Féin is blocking Executive meetings until the DUP sets a timeframe for devolving policing and justice powers and moves on issues such as an Irish language act, education reform and future use of the Maze prison site.
"Let me also make it clear I am not dragging my feet on dealing with outstanding issues. While the Executive functions these talks can continue in parallel with all the intensity that is required," Mr Robinson said.
He said that last July he and Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness reached an agreement that there should be one policing and justice department and "a single minister elected at all times from the Assembly in a way which would ensure cross-community support".
This was the mechanism whereby neither a Sinn Féin nor DUP Assembly member could take the ministry.
Sinn Féin, however, has said the agreement only related to the lifetime of this Assembly, which concludes in 2011 if it sees out its full term.
Mr Robinson said Sinn Féin's interpretation of that deal was wrong.
"Now it appears Sinn Féin contend that 'elected at all times' really meant elected only for one time.
"This is such vacuous nonsense that only the gormless would treat Sinn Féin's absurd construction with anything other than scorn and derision," he said.
Mr Robinson said Sinn Féin "must stop delaying the negotiations by trying to unpick what has already been agreed".
The SDLP also attacked Sinn Féin, accusing the party of blocking moves to help the vulnerable with soaring heating costs.