SINN FÉIN:SINN FÉIN president Gerry Adams has said that any deal concluded with the DUP would be a "staging post" in the political process. Interviewed on Radio Ulster yesterday morning, Mr Adams said: "If we get an agreement it's another staging post; there will be other difficulties. Hopefully we will be able to build confidence."
Traditional Unionist Voice leader Jim Allister vociferously criticised Mr Adams’s comments, asking: “A staging post to where?”
Sinn Féin did not see a deal on policing and justice as the completion of the devolution process, Mr Allister said.
Instead, republicans were “positioning themselves to bring government to a standstill the next time they need further delivery from the DUP on their all-Ireland agenda”.
“The agenda of republicanism is insatiable. No unionist should be playing their long game,” he said, by providing this “staging post” towards a united Ireland.
Mr Adams also referred to comments by DUP MP Gregory Campbell who said any deal should be put to the wider public to ascertain levels of “public confidence”. “If by public consultation he means the entire community, that would be very novel,” Mr Adams said. “I think it would be really cool for the people of Garvaghy Road to have Gregory Campbell to ask them how he should proceed.”
He said the difficulties over the transfer of justice powers were “a crisis that have been two years in the making”.
The British and Irish governments and other parties had not been upholding their side of the accords, said Mr Adams.
