A key figure in Irish-American politics yesterday put new pressure on the North's nationalist parties by urging them to end their prevarication on policing by nominating members to a new Policing Board.
The call came from the chairman of the House International Relations Committee, Congressman Ben Gilman, a prominent supporter of the nationalist cause. It goes much further in embracing police reform proposals than either Sinn Fein or even the SDLP, and is understood to reflect strong confidence by the congressman in the guarantor role of the Northern Ireland Police Oversight Commissioner, Mr Tom Constantine.
Both Sinn Fein and the SDLP have withheld support for the latest policing proposals, insisting that the 80-page document should be published.
Mr Gilman, a New York Democrat who is co-chair of the Congressional Ad-Hoc Committee on Ireland, has played a major role in Congress in highlighting the need for police reform, holding hearings on the issue, backing the ban on US financial support for RUC training, and in making the first submission to the Patten inquiry.
In his statement, Mr Gilman said that "in the light of the British and Irish Governments' constructive proposal last week to revisit much-needed additional legislation on full policing reform and to place Tom Constantine, the current NI Police Oversight Commissioner, in a leadership position to monitor and urge full implementation of all the Patten Commission's 175 vital reforms, it is time for all parties of both traditions to nominate members to and help establish the new Policing Board and get on with it."
"The perfect is the enemy of the good," he said. "We need to see a new police service in Northern Ireland fully accountable to the entire community and supported by both traditions. This in turn can help end the destructive, corrosive violence and criminality by paramilitary groups on both sides, which makes permanent peace even more difficult."
