Adams: 'Democratic Unionists cannot stop change'

The Rev Ian Paisley’s Democratic Unionist Party can only slow down but not stop the process of change in the North, Gerry Adams said today.

Speaking after publication of the latest IMC report the Sinn Féin president said the big question now was whether the DUP wanted to condemn the province to second class government or sheer power.

Arriving at Stormont Castle for talks with Ulster Secretary Peter Hain he said: “What this is about is trying to ensure the process of change continues and we are very, very much part of that.”

He said they had to be patient but quietly assertive. “The fact is the DUP don’t have anything other than very limited options.”

He said the question of what happened next was not for him. “A deal could be done tomorrow morning, a deal could be done tonight.

“The question is for Ian Paisley, does he want British direct rule from ministers who are not accountable whatsoever to this part of our island or the different political groups with a mandate who can at least be sacked by the electorate?”

Mr Adams asked how long were other parties going to “cast about for some straw to stop them from coming forward and taking up their rightful position of administrative rule in this part of our island?”

He warned the DUP: “If they don’t participate they are condemning people here, particularly their own constituents, to second class public services run by second class fly-in, fly-out British ministers.”

He said the DUP could go away and come back in two, three or four years but all the changes and cross-border harmonisation which would have been put in place by the British and Irish governments could not be wished away.

“I think that all the DUP can do is to delay, attempt to slow down, but they cannot stop the process of change.”

Mr Adams said he had not read the latest IMC report, but party colleague Gerry Kelly had and had told him it contained a detailed review of all that had happened in recent months.

But he added that, even without the report, “it is very, very, very clear that republicans have kept all of the commitments that republicans have made”.

Mr Adams side-stepped a clear answer to the key question of whether republicans were now ready to finally give their full backing to policing and policing structures in the North as the Government have urged them to and the DUP has demanded they must.

He said: “All of us have a duty to uphold law and order. Sinn Féin supports law and order and that is why we have spent so much time trying to get policing right.”