Sinn Féin and the SDLP are at loggerheads over whether British prime minister Tony Blair's statement on MI5 yesterday removes the British security service from any role in civic policing in Northern Ireland.
Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams welcomed the prime minister's announcement on MI5 yesterday, although he still refused to say whether at the Sinn Féin ardchomhairle in Dublin on Saturday he will recommend that the ardfheis on policing should go ahead this month.
A senior Sinn Féin source said last night that Mr Adams has yet to take a final decision on the ardfheis but that he would be guided by whether it was "strategically" the right thing to do for republicanism. At a republican commemoration in Fermanagh on New Year's Day, Mr Adams told republicans that in relation to policing they must think "strategically". Mr Adams again called for DUP leader, the Rev Ian Paisley to provide commitments that if Sinn Féin moved on policing he would enter a powersharing government with Sinn Féin on March 26th and accept the devolution of policing powers to a restored executive by May next year.
He sidestepped directly answering Taoiseach Bertie Ahern's recommendation on Tuesday night that even if Dr Paisley refused to move, that he should proceed with the ardfheis. "With respect to the Taoiseach, he is not a Sinn Féin adviser," he said.
Sinn Féin's policing spokesman Gerry Kelly said that after intensive negotiations with the British government Sinn Féin had "secured the reversal of the British government's proposal to integrate the PSNI and MI5". Mr Kelly and Mr Adams accused the Irish Government and the SDLP of accepting in the St Andrews Agreement that MI5 should have a role in policing in Northern Ireland. "At St Andrews the British government proposed the integration of MI5 into policing structures in the North, which the Irish Government acquiesced to and which the SDLP claimed as a victory," said Mr Kelly.
SDLP leader Mark Durkan, however, accused Sinn Féin of weakening the accountability structures. He said that Police Ombudsman Nuala O'Loan could investigate MI5 in Northern Ireland but under the new arrangements she would be prevented from such work.
"The fact is that the Police Ombudsman can investigate national security matters now. When MI5 takes over, she will not be able to and will have no power to make them give her information," he said.
"So when anybody has cause for concern or complaint about national security intelligence gathering, unlike now, there will be nobody credible to turn to," said Mr Durkan.