Sinn Féin warned to start building Unionist confidence

The republican movement needs to move quickly to build unionist confidence if there is to be power-sharing in the North this spring, Sinn Féin was warned today.

Democratic Unionist MP David Simpson described recent Sinn Féin calls for public co-operation with the Police Service of Northern Ireland as a small step forward.

However he warned the March 26 deadline for power sharing could still be missed and he accused Gerry Adams’s party of being equivocal about the type of crimes which it believed should be reported.

“In the days after the Sinn Féin/IRA special conference on policing there were several public statements by senior Sinn Féin/IRA representatives expressing verbal support for PSNI recruits from nationalist areas and calling upon people to go to the police with evidence,” the Upper Bann MP noted.

“This was a small step forward, but was only a step. Indeed it was only a step taken by some Sinn Féin/IRA people and was limited to certain types of crime.

“Sinn Féin/IRA needs to understand that the demand of democracy is for not just selected words from selected representatives only, but for a total acceptance of the police, the courts and the rule of law and all of the civic responsibilities that go along with that.”

British prime minister Tony Blair and Taoiseach Bertie Ahern approved a March 7 Assembly Election in the North on Monday after delegates at last weekend’s special Sinn Féin conference in Dublin overwhelmingly endorsed Gerry Adams’s proposal that republicans should end their 86-year boycott of policing.

Both prime ministers believed Sinn Féin support for policing would persuade the Rev Ian Paisley’s Democratic Unionists to form a power sharing government at Stormont by March 26.

However the DUP has called on Gerry Adams’s party to prove its commitment to policing by encouraging its community to work with the PSNI to fight crime and allowing young nationalists and republicans to join.

Mr Adams and other Sinn Féin members responded by urging their voters to pass on any information they have on the murder two years ago of Belfast father-of-two Robert McCartney to the police, to report other crimes like aggravated burglary, car crime and rape.

The Sinn Féin president also said he would not stand in the way of any republican wishing to join the PSNI.

However Mr Simpson reminded Sinn Féin words were not sufficient.

Republicans, he argued, would have to prove their policing credentials by going to the PSNI with information on the McCartney murder.

The DUP MP also called for republicans to give guarantees that they would never take up arms again against their unionist neighbours.

“Sinn Féin/IRA may be having difficulty coming to terms with all of the ramifications of a proper commitment to democracy but that is a problem of their own making,” he said.

“They have a long way still to travel.

“If their current speed continues, then the Government’s proposed March 26th deadline could not be met.

“Having wasted the months after the St Andrews negotiations Sinn Féin/IRA have a lot of catching up to do. It is time they got on with it.”