A deal on policing in Northern Ireland is "very, very close", the SDLP leader Mr John Hume claimed today.
The Foyle MP believes details could be worked out shortly which would encourage young Catholics to join the new-look service. "We're now saying we're very, very close to resolving the final difficulties and in the near future we will be setting up the new police service," he said.
So far both the SDLP and Sinn Fein have refused to endorse the proposed new force, to be renamed the Police Service of Northern Ireland. But speaking on BBC Radio Ulster, Mr Hume said: "We're very close and confident we will have all the details worked out on the Police Service of Northern Ireland and we will be calling on people to join the new service and create a police service which will have support."
Mr Hume also claimed economics and "real" politics would be the key to the elections in Northern Ireland. He maintained voters were more interested in creating new jobs than constitutional wranglings, now the Northern Ireland Assembly and power-sharing executive were in place. "We're now into real politics," he said.
"We're now working together. Economics and real politics is crucial to the people in both the Westminster and local elections." The SDLP's main battleground is West Tyrone, where Brid Rodgers - the farm minister in the Stormont cabinet - is fighting sitting Ulster Unionist MP William Thompson and Sinn Fein's Pat Doherty.
Mr Hume said: "We are the one party working to make this election a normal election, not an election like all the past elections about waving flags, but about developing our community economically." PA