The Taoiseach discussed NI security with the British Prime Minister yesterday. Here Gerry Kelly, Sinn Féin spokesman on policing, sets out his party's reasons for boycotting the Police Board
In an interview on Sunday on the BBC Breakfast With Frost programme the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, once again urged Sinn Féin to take its seats on the Policing Board. Notwithstanding the fact that our position is clear on the British government's failure to implement the Good Friday agreement's principles of policing or the Patten recommendations, I wish to restate the reasons why we will not do so.
Threshold for a New Beginning
Sinn Féin, in accordance with the Good Friday agreement, seeks a police service which is representative of the community, fully accountable to that community, free from partisan political control and which respects and upholds human rights. We believe that, if the Patten proposals in their entirety had been implemented, the threshold might have been created to make a new beginning possible and for republicans to seriously consider participation in and support for the policing structures. Patten has not been implemented in full. No one is claiming otherwise.
No Plan to be Representative
Instead the situation is that, despite its new name, the six-county police force remains unrepresentative. It will be a cold house for Catholics and an ice house for any nationalist foolish enough to seek entry. Catholics will remain a tiny minority within this police force for many years to come and nationalists and republicans are not represented at all. For instance, the British government refused to make public indicative annual goals and timetables as a means to this end. They say they accept, but have refused to implement, the Patten recommendation to disband the full-time RUC reserve.
The police force is not and will not be representative of the community it polices because, among other things, there is no plan or effective mechanisms to achieve this.
Partisan Political Control
Crucially this police force is not accountable to the community and on critical issues is outside the control of the Policing Board. This much has been implicitly acknowledged by the SDLP, recently meeting with the British Security Minister to "express their exasperation" at the lack of action being taken to curb the loyalist killing campaign". Why did the SDLP have to do this when they sit on the Policing Board? Why is this necessary when we were told that the board could summon the Chief Constable to discuss anything to do with policing?
Quite simply because the power is still retained by the British government over these matters and not subject to the democratic accountability of a Policing Board as envisaged by Patten. The reality is that the Policing Board does not have the powers required to ensure that the police force is democratically accountable; does not have the powers to investigate their abysmal response to the intensive and concerted UDA pogrom of the past 10 months and to get to the bottom of the reasons for this.
Accountability has been carefully written out of the policing equation. Partisan political control continues to be exerted by the securocrats in the NIO and the former RUC Chief Constable, Ronnie Flanagan.
The baleful influence of the Special Branch and their relationship with the UDA remain intact. What we have is a repackaged RUC.
Human Rights
Nor can we be confident about the renamed police force respecting human rights. For instance, a number of weeks ago in this newspaper, Maurice Hayes, a member of the Patten Commission, expressed disappointment and perplexity regarding the failure to require all officers in the police force to swear the new human rights oath.
Similarly, he could not understand why the Patten proposals on the Special Branch have not been implemented. He confesses that the mishandling of Patten has resulted in nationalists and republicans losing confidence in the new policing arrangements.
Other Patten Commissioners - Clifford Shearing and Gerard Lynch - have been equally scathing of the British government. Shearing stated categorically that the Patten report had been "gutted".
The Untouchables: Special Branch - Business as Usual
The issue of the Special Branch, the force within a force, goes to the heart of the policing issue. Whether in relation to the Omagh bomb inquiry, the murder of Pat Finucane, or scores of other disputed killings, the activities and procedures of the Special Branch remain at the heart of nationalist mistrust.
These are the people who have hindered investigations and inquiries into the deaths of over 400 people in disputed killings by British forces and the hundreds of people killed through collusion between the British forces, the Special Branch and the loyalist death squads.
The Special Branch are the people who developed the RUC into a force whose prime motivation was the maintenance of the Northern statelet as a cold house for Catholics in general and republicans in particular. They are still there.
They do not have to take the new oath which specifically requires them to respect the human rights of all. The Policing Board can ask Ronnie Flanagan for a report on the activities of the Special Branch and Special Branch agents like the late William Stobie. If they believe there has been wrongdoing. Ronnie Flanagan, under the British government's "Police Act", can refuse outright because it is a "sensitive personal" matter.
These are some of the more serious concerns which prompted Sinn Féin to take up the positions we have in respect of the issue of a new beginning to policing.
National and Democratic Consensus
Sinn Féin is committed to seeking a genuinely new policing service based on partnership, representativeness, accountability and human rights. Partisan political control is not acceptable. As we all know, it means a police state. The people we represent want policing and need policing for community safety. The tragedy is that the opportunity presented by the Good Friday agreement and the Patten Report to transform the policing environment has not been taken. And this is the message Sinn Féin is getting from nationalists and republicans about the current policing structures.
Most nationalists and all republicans believe that the Irish Government and the SDLP made a significant mistake when they backed the present policing structures, that the SDLP has allowed the British government off the hook on this issue. It is our firm conviction that the Irish News editorials on this issue do not reflect accurately popular opinion. Moreover, now that the nationalist consensus on this issue has been breached, it will be that much harder to get the necessary movement from the British government and the NIO securocrats.
But this cannot simply be about "we told you so". There must be movement. Sinn Féin is not interested in scoring political points against the SDLP or the Irish Government on this matter. Policing is too important an issue for that. Nationalists and republicans want us to get it right, and we remain willing and prepared to work with all those who genuinely want to see a new beginning to policing. Sinn Féin will not settle for second best. We will not settle for repackaged structures, controls, procedures and attitudes that have failed us all for generations.
•Gerry Kelly MLA is Sinn Féin spokesperson on policing