Policing powers set-up an advantage to dissidents: Woodward

Failure to transfer policing and justice powers to Stormont is creating a window of opportunity for republican dissidents, Northern Ireland Secretary Shaun Woodward has warned.

He branded the Continuity IRA (CIRA) and Real IRA (RIRA) psychopathic criminals trapped in the past, but said they were now focused on creating political instability.

The DUP and Sinn Féin are locked in talks on the transfer of policing powers, but Mr Woodward said the delay in a decision was providing an opportunity to dissidents.

Republican groupings opposed to the peace process have been responsible for four recent gun and bomb attacks on members of the PSNI.

The murder bids included a massive landmine attack last month near the Border in Co Fermanagh where two officers narrowly escaped death when the device only partially exploded.

Mr Woodward said: “One of the things that worries me about the amount of time that is left between stage one and stage two of devolution is that it presents an opportunity for dissidents.

“I don’t think it is by chance that we’re seeing more (dissident violence) than we have at any time over the last four or five years.

“They think their time is running out and they’re right, their time is running out because they don’t belong in the new Northern Ireland.”

Mr Woodward said the best way to isolate dissidents was to copperfasten devolution with the transfer of policing powers.

Sinn Féin insists the move is a commitment of the St Andrews agreement that paved the way for shared government in the North.

But the DUP has blocked the transfer of policing powers until more is known about how any new justice ministry will work.

The minister said Sinn Féin’s support for policing in Northern Ireland had transformed the relationship between nationalists and the PSNI.

But he added: “If nationalists and republicans felt that somehow they were going to be excluded from power sharing in law and order, I think quite quickly you would see quite a lot of disquiet.”

He said dissidents had no support in the Catholic community and he contrasted the RIRA and CIRA groups with the mainstream republican movement of the 1980s.

“They could elect (IRA hunger striker) Bobby Sands,” he said.

“But the idea that anyone from RIRA’s leadership, if that’s the word for it, could be elected... I don’t think they could actually be elected on to a postage stamp.

“These are people who have no community support, but they do have a bit of capacity, hence their ability to put five shots into the shoulder of a policeman who, thank God, didn’t die.

“But so long as they’ve got some kind of opportunity, I suppose they have some kind of a goal. And the best way, therefore, to make them completely pointless is to actually remove any psychopathic conception of a goal that they have.

“It’s about making sure the dissidents have got nowhere to go and they become an ever-dwindling number of ageing people.”

Mr Woodward said a decision to complete devolution would aid the economy.

“And we can see Northern Ireland catching up on the last 40 years,” he said.