Sinn Féin will 'support policing'

Sinn Féin would support policing arrangements in the North "without any great problems"once it could reach agreement on the issue at its ard fheis, the former deputy chairman of Northern Ireland's policing board, Denis Bradley, has said.

Speaking to The Irish Times yesterday before delivering a keynote speech to the Association of European Journalists in Dublin, Mr Bradley also said he was "flabbergasted" that the Government and the SDLP had "allowed the DUP take the high moral ground on the policing issue".

He said the St Andrews Agreement would be endorsed by all parties by March "because there is nowhere else to go".

"A deal will happen. Sure there will be some small difficulties along the way, in ways that no-one really cares about anymore.

"There's an inevitability about it now. The people are walking towards a deal. There will be institutions. There will be devolution. There will be a deal."

He said Sinn Féin would support policing arrangements once it gets support to do so at its ard fheis, which he said would not be called until the party was sure it had a sufficient majority of members "on board".

"Sinn Féin will get through the ard fheis then without any great problems and support policing. The waters that are policing run deep," he said. "They will endorse policing arrangements in the North. The big question is whether they are ever going to do it for the Garda."

He also called on the party to applaud the "generosity" shown by the SDLP.