Hain welcomes SF meeting on policing

The Northern Secretary, Peter Hain, has welcomed the Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams' decision to call an Ard Chomhairle meeting on policing, calling it a “seismic step”.

The meeting is due to begin at lunchtime at a hotel near Dublin airport.

The party's national executive will be asked to approve the holding of a special party Ard Fheis to endorse policing.

Mr Hain says policing and justice could be devolved to a local assembly as early as spring 2008.

He maintains that all parties in the North support “the principle of policing and justice being devolved to the incoming executive when the time is right".