SDLP: 'SF must choose - crime or the law'

Sinn Féin must decide if they support the law or crime as they deliberate over policing in Northern Ireland, the leader of the SDLP claimed today.

In a hard hitting attack on Gerry Adams’ party, SDLP leader Mark Durkan said recent investigations into IRA involvement in money laundering and racketeering fuelled fears about a Mafia style culture developing in the North.

And he also claimed the only time republicans co-operated with police was when it suited them such as protecting their no claims bonuses following car accidents.

“The fact is that there are people in the paramilitaries up to their necks in racketeering and money laundering,” the Foyle MP said.

“That leaves people scared that we are headed for a Sopranos culture here in the North (of Ireland).

“Faced with this threat, Sinn Féin have to decide where they stand.

“Either they are for the law or they are for crime. Either they are for policing or they are for criminality.

“The choice is as simple as that – and Sinn Féin are running out of excuses to duck it.”

Mr Durkan sounded his ultimatum to Sinn Féin on policing as British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Taoiseach Bertie Ahern prepared to meet for the first time since the IRA completed its disarmament programme two weeks ago.

The meeting in Downing Street was taking place following last week’s probe by the Assets Recovery Agency and the Republic’s Criminal Assets Bureau into the Provisionals’ link to a £30m (€43.6m) property portfolio in Manchester.

The British and Irish governments have, in recent weeks, been heartened by the Provisionals’ declaration in July that its armed campaign was over and hope it will enable them to entice the Rev Ian Paisley’s Democratic Unionists into power sharing with Sinn Féin.

Two reports on paramilitary activity by the four-member Independent Monitoring Commission will have a critical role to play in this regard.

The first of them, which is due to be handed over to the governments this week, is expected to say the Provisionals have been inactive since announcing the end of their armed campaign.

However unionists and moderate nationalists insist Sinn Féin must also sign up to police reforms in the North which the SDLP signed up to in 2001 but republicans have criticised for not going far enough.

“Originally Sinn Féin said that they would only sign up for policing when there was new policing legislation,” Mr Durkan recalled.

“When it was passed, Sinn Féin decided to keep their policy of boycotting the police anyway. Suddenly they found a new excuse – that there had to be date for the devolution of justice.

“Many suspect that behind these feeble excuses is a simple truth.

“Sinn Féin know that IRA members are involved in crime and money laundering. Their policy of stonewalling the police helps protect them – like it has helped to protect the murderers of Robert McCartney.

“In fact, the only time that Sinn Féin co-operates with the police is when it suits them.

“Senior Provisionals deal with the police when they have had a car accident. The one time that it seems to be okay to deal with the police as far as they are concerned is when it comes to protecting their own ‘no claims’ bonuses – so much for an Ireland of equals.”