SF insists on local control of policing timetable

Sinn Féin would require the DUP to agree to a timetable for the devolution of policing and justice powers to the Stormont Assembly as part of any overall deal to restore the power-sharing Executive.

This was confirmed last night after the Sinn Féin president, Mr Gerry Adams, held a "useful" first meeting with the Chief Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, Mr Hugh Orde, at 10 Downing Street.

Mr Adams emerged from his lengthy talks with Mr Orde stressing the "collective responsibility" of all sides to produce "a comprehensive, holistic agreement", which he said must be "about putting the Good Friday agreement in place".

Party sources later told The Irish Times they interpreted this as meaning an agreement "which deals with all the issues, including the arms issue, demilitarisation and policing".

Senior DUP sources have made clear in private that they do not envisage the devolution of policing powers within the lifetime of the current Assembly.

And reports believed to have emanated from within the DUP about the current British-Irish proposals for restoring the Assembly and Executive have suggested the party believes it has an effective power of veto over when such devolution might take place.

That interpretation is supported in turn by Section 17 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998, which provides that the abolition of any existing Stormont department, or the creation of a new one, must be approved by a cross-community vote in the Assembly.

However, when asked if this meant Sinn Féin could in fact have no guarantee as to when, or if, devolution of policing and justice powers would occur, usually reliable sources said "the timetable for devolution would have to be agreed as part of what Gerry Adams has called 'a comprehensive agreement'."

The sources confirmed in addition that Sinn Féin requires new legislation to effect further policing reforms it says are necessary to finally implement the full recommendations of the Patten Commission report.

Sinn Féin is understood to be working to a projected timetable of between 12 and 18 months, pointing to the creation of a new Stormont policing and justice ministry in the early part of 2006.

Flanked by a strong Sinn féin delegation, which included fellow MPs Mr Martin McGuinness and Ms Michelle Gildernew, Mr Adams told reporters in Downing Street that he had agreed to meet Mr Orde to discuss the "hugely important" issue of the "demilitarisation of republican heartlands".

And he asserted "good work" had been done at the meeting.

At the same time Mr Adams said he and Mr Orde had not discussed the wider policing issues.

With hopes rising in Dublin and London for a dramatic political breakthrough, Mr Adams repeated his view that a deal with the DUP was "inevitable."

However he also stuck rigidly to his insistence that such a deal would have to be "bedded" in the 1998 Belfast Agreement. "If we can make sure that the package that emerges is bedded in the agreement and about implementing the agreement then, of course, it isn't a matter in my view of 'if'."