The SDLP and Sinn Féin accused each other of "getting it wrong" on policing yesterday as they set out contrasting policy documents on the issue. Joe Humphreys reports.
SDLP policing spokesman Mr Alex Attwood said Sinn Féin had "little to say" on combating crime "because people know that there is little that they can do".
Citing Sinn Féin's boycott of the Policing Board and District Policing Partnerships, he said "all they have delivered is their seats on these bodies" to unionists who opposed the Patten reforms.
But Sinn Féin's policing spokesman Mr Gerry Kelly said the SDLP was participating in a system that was neither accountable nor representative, nor in line with the recommendations of the Patten report.
He said the SDLP had "got it wrong" by becoming involved with an organisation which still had a special branch that "is still running death squads and, in fact, allowing them to run with impunity."
In its 12-point plan on policing, the SDLP recommends tougher penalties for attacks on the elderly and car crime, new laws against anti-social behaviour, and better enforcement of under-age drinking regulations against bars and off-licenses.
Among Sinn Féin's key demands are an immediate banning of plastic bullets, increased demilitarisation and, "crucially", the transfer of powers over policing to the Assembly and Executive.
Meanwhile yesterday, the Department of Regional Development asked the SDLP to remove any of its "Stop the DUP" posters from locations where they might cause confusion for drivers.
A department spokeswoman said the posters, which resemble hexagonal "stop" signs, had come to its attention because "one of them was apparently hanging at a low height over a footpath" on Ormeau Road.
The department was not seeking for them to be banned but merely wished that they, "like all election posters", avoided causing an obstruction, the spokeswoman added.
Mr Attwood said the SDLP's campaign was about stopping the DUP because the "biggest threat" to the Belfast Agreement was the DUP.