The PSNI chief constable Mr Hugh Orde has rejected criticism by Mr Gerry Adams of the pace of police reform and urged Sinn Féin to join the Policing Board. Gerry Moriarty, Northern Editor, reports.
Mr Orde moved quickly yesterday to defend the Police Service of Northern Ireland after the Sinn Féin president, Mr Adams, set out a series of reasons why his party could not endorse the new policing dispensation.
Mr Adams also said signalled that Sinn Féin would come under pressure from President Bush and other US politicians for refusing to join the Policing Board when he and other party members visit the US next week for the St Patrick's celebrations.
Mr Adams said the US administration would "strongly row in behind the British and Irish governments" on the issue of policing. "We can expect the US administration to follow the Dublin and London line on the current policing arrangements. I disagree with that line, as do the majority of nationalists in the North," he added.
People had a right to a first- class policing service which did not currently exist, said Mr Adams, although he did allow that "considerable progress" had been achieved on police reform.
Areas that still needed to be addressed, he said, included reform of the Special Branch, the abolition of plastic bullets, making the force more representative of the community, dealing with alleged police collusion with loyalist paramilitaries, the alleged failure of the DPP to deal with "human rights abusers in the police", and the alleged failure of the Policing Board to instigate its own inquiries into police wrong-doing. The chief constable rejected the criticism of the special branch, stating that it operated properly and that no force including the Garda operated without such a section.
Mr Orde also defended his decision to blame the IRA for the recent attack on Mr Bobby Tohill.