Policing in NI is key to peace

What the three people with connections with the republican movement were doing in Colombia (it now seems they were up to far less than was initially trumpeted); whether the IRA will ever decommission any or all of its weapons (it is likely they will decommission much of them but hardly all of them); even whether Gerry Adams, Martin McGuinness, Pat Doherty and Gerry Kelly still control the IRA (one hopes they still do) hardly matters. Certainly these questions hardly matter compared with the issue of policing.

Policing is the issue in Northern Ireland and always has been. If a police force can be established in Northern Ireland which has the support of the vast majority of both sides of the community, then all other issues subside in importance. And in spite of the standoff of Sinn Fein on the latest British proposals on the implementation of the Patten proposals, we seem alluringly close to a deal.

Mitchel McLaughlin, chairman of Sinn Fein, has made it clear in the last few days that if the British government commits itself to the full loaf of the Patten commission proposals, Sinn Fein will go along with it. And even where Sinn Fein wants to go beyond the Patten proposals, its demands are containable. Incidentally, there is no point in trying to push on with a reformed police force in Northern Ireland if it fails to win the acceptance of Sinn Fein. However unfortunate it may be, the SDLP and the Catholic hierarchy don't matter. They went along, for the most part, with the reformed RUC of 1970 - and remember what happened to it?

Mitchel McLaughlin identified eight objections to what the British are proposing. The most striking of these concerns the failure of the British government to insist that all members of the reformed police force take an oath to uphold human rights standards.

John Reid's package removes this suggested obligation. One assumes this is because existing police officers refuse to make such a declaration, for it might imply that they have not always upheld such standards - and this, on top of changes to the name and emblem, is just too much to ask.

Well, too bad. The fact is many nationalists do not accept that the RUC has upheld these standards - indeed the suggestion that they have is laughable to most nationalists - and, given that the existing police force is not to be disbanded, the very least that might be required would be that existing officers make such a declaration. The stuff about the Chief Constable bringing the human rights requirements to the attention of existing officers is simply pathetic.

Sinn Fein is right to hang tough on this.

It is less clear, however, what Sinn Fein is complaining about in relation to the powers of the Policing Board to initiate inquiries into the conduct of the police force. Patten recommended that the Secretary of State have a right to veto such an inquiry, and that is what is proposed. But even if a condition of Sinn Fein acceptance of the reformed force is that the Policing Board have an unfettered right to initiate an inquiry, what is the big deal? Why should anyone object?

It isn't clear either what Sinn Fein is on about in complaining over the limitation of the powers of the policing boards generally - for what is now proposed is what Patten proposed. But why again should this be a major issue? What would be surrendered if Sinn Fein got what it wants on this?

Sinn Fein claims the Chief Constable retains the power to block or interfere with investigations. I can't see this either in the Patten proposals or the Reid package. Ditto with the powers of the Ombudsman.

The Northern Ireland Office seems to have dragged its feet on the review on the use of plastic bullets. Anyway, there was indiscriminate use of plastic bullets by the RUC in west Belfast last month, which has revived this as a major issue. Why John Reid cannot simply suspend the use of plastic bullets until the review is completed is unclear (water cannon could be used instead and, incidentally, plastic bullets are not used in Britain - so why in Northern Ireland?)

As for the Special Branch, again, although John Reid insists to the contrary, it is clear that the British are not adhering to what Patten proposed. Patten recommended that the Special Branch be amalgamated with the Crime Branch, and there should be far fewer Special Branch officers. John Reid says the Patten recommendations will be implemented in time, which is not good enough.

Neither is it good enough that clearing up the mess Peter Mandelson left behind on police reform be deferred for a year. Why not by the end of 2001?

It is a measure of how far the peace process has gone that an acceptable police service is within reach if such insignificant further changes are implemented (insignificant, that is, to the British and the unionists). It would be a calamity if the opportunity was not grasped, for all else would later fall into place. It is a pity the Dublin Government, the Catholic hierarchy and the SDLP have encouraged the British to proceed on the basis of their currently flawed package when such minor changes could make all the difference.

vbrowne@irish-times.ie