Gerry Adams supports abolition of plastic bullets

Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams today threw his support behind the campaign against the new plastic bullets.

‘‘We have long supported the abolition of plastic bullets,’’ he said.

‘‘It is one of the few issues that we have argued as a point of principle beyond (the) Patten (Report on police reform) that will need to be resolved if democrats can be a part of any new policing service.

‘‘If anyone thinks that young nationalists or republicans are going to join a police service where they will be armed to use plastic bullets against their neighbours, then they have not grasped the nettle of what needs to be done on this issue.

‘‘So I have no problem whatsoever in endorsing this manifesto against plastic bullets.’’

Mr Adams called on other political parties to oppose the new plastic bullets introduction in Northern Ireland and Britain.

He insisted most people wanted to see ‘‘the repressive resources’’ used in the past to be abolished in the new political dispensation.

‘‘That needs to be done away with,’’ he argued.

‘‘We need to be moving into unarmed policing. We need community policing, a police service which is depoliticised which is neutral on political issues and which is genuinely a part of its community.

‘‘So I would like to think that all parties would be able to support that concept and I have absolutely no reason as to why they can’t.’’

Mr Adams added that if the Government could ban the use of plastic bullets ‘‘probably against security advice’’, there was no reason why the Northern Ireland Secretary Dr John Reid could not do the same.