STORMONT MINISTER for justice David Ford will outline his programme for reform of the administration of justice today.
He is expected to stress the importance of building a shared future for all people in Northern Ireland, a key Alliance policy position, and outline how costs are to be cut.
Less than two months after being appointed Minister, the first locally elected politician to have control of justice since 1972, Mr Ford faces a series of pressing problems relating to loyalist and dissident republican violence.
Following Friday’s funeral of murdered Shankill loyalist Bobby Moffett and the subsequent resignation of Progressive Unionist leader Dawn Purvis, Mr Ford may refer to the reported turmoil within loyalist circles and to concerns about the validity of claims that all UVF weapons were decommissioned last year.
Also on his list of concerns is the controversy surrounding dissident republican prisoners in Maghaberry jail. One dissident prisoner quit a hunger strike last month after six weeks’ protest. The Minister has acknowledged the potential for prison disputes to spill over on to the streets, but suggested that progress on prison regime reform was being made.
“I am certainly keen to see prison staff engaging in a way which ensures that tensions are reduced and that the best possible regime is provided for everybody,” he said yesterday.
Although Mr Ford does not have control of intelligence matters, which are the concern of British intelligence agency MI5, he said arrests this year related to dissident republicans and loyalists were already ahead of the total for the whole of 2009.
“I think that is an indication that a community is rejecting those who want to turn the clock back,” he told the BBC.
Following Mr Moffett’s murder, Mr Ford has refused to state that the UVF’s ceasefire is over, preferring to leave that assessment for the time being with the Independent Monitoring Commission, the British and Irish paramilitary watchdog.