NI blueprint deadline unlikely to be met

Irish and British government hopes that the North's parties would respond to last week's joint proposals by today seem unlikely…

Irish and British government hopes that the North's parties would respond to last week's joint proposals by today seem unlikely to be met.

Sinn Fein described the deadline as "silly nonsense" while Ulster Unionist sources indicated they were unlikely to respond today.

After meeting the Northern Secretary on Saturday, a Sinn Fein member said his party needed more information on the proposals, in particular on the implementation plan for police reform, before it could make a judgment.

The party's chief whip, Mr Alex Maskey said: "If people are saying this is a take-it-or-leave-it document and there's a deadline for Monday, then that's all silly nonsense and it doesn't apply in our thinking." He said as far Sinn Fein was concerned "there are no deadlines in this matter other than the imperative to get the Good Friday agreement implemented".

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Asked about the policing document shown to his party's delegation, he said: "Obviously it is a lengthy document and it will take some time to study and analyse fully so we're not going to knee-jerk on it.

"We have looked at it cursorily and we feel that a number of elements that are of concern to ourselves and others have not yet been met but we will continue to press ahead," he said.

Mr Maskey said the issues of concern included "the accountability of this proposed new service, the make-up of the (policing) board and the responsibility and authority of the board vis-a-vis the powers that the board may have", as well as "the powers that the Chief Constable and the Secretary of State would have in terms of the current legislation".

He also called for the implementation plan, so far only seen by party delegations, to be published. "All the people out there who voted for the agreement should be fully in possession of all of the plans and proposals to implement the agreement."

Mr Maskey said he welcomed the government's acknowledgement that police reform legislation needed to be amended. "What we want to do is pursue the amending legislation and see what it actually is because the implementation plan can only fulfil the legislation, it can't usurp legislation," he said.

"Ultimately we would want to see the specific amendments because it is only on the basis of the legislation that any implementation plan is satisfactory."

The SDLP said it had not made its mind up about the package. The party's Finance Minister, Mr Mark Durkan, said a number of differences between his party and the British government over policing had been resolved but he still could not say if his party would take up its seats on the policing board.

"We said the gap has been narrowed, we didn't say the gap has been totally closed," he told the BBC. "We will try to approach that issue and all other issues in relation to the package as positively as we possibly can."

An SDLP spokeswoman said the party was still hoping to give its response to the governments today but added that this might change.