Republican Sinn Féin has rejected an appeal by Gerry Adams to discuss policing in Northern Ireland. The Sinn Féin president had offered to meet other republican organisations to discuss the PSNI in advance of Sinn Féin's ardfheis on January 28th.
Speaking at his Falls Road headquarters yesterday, Mr Adams said: "We've made contact with the 32 County Sovereignty Movement, and I see that as a separate initiative from any dialogue with the armed groups. We want to be inclusive, we want to talk and to listen to people who oppose us. The key is to try to get an end to any armed actions from any republican element."
Republican Sinn Féin leader Ruairí Ó Brádaigh quickly dismissed Mr Adams's approach.
Although Mr Adams stressed yesterday he was not appealing to so-called "dissidents", Mr Ó Brádaigh said in a statement: "Who is Mr Adams addressing? Is it the people who have resigned recently from his party? For our part we are not dissidents. Mr Adams knows well our core values," he continued. "He knows that no reconciliation is possible. Republican Sinn Féin's values were once his own, before he and the Provos decided to accept the institutions of British rule in Ireland. The discussions he proposes do not refer to us."
Mr Adams begins a series of public consultation meetings aimed at addressing grassroots republican concerns at endorsement of the PSNI. The meetings begin in Toome, Co Derry, and Galbally, Co Tyrone, on Saturday. He said the outcome of the ardfheis was not a foregone conclusion and expected some people might walk in to some of the public meetings so that they could walk out.
Republicans opposed to Sinn Féin's moves on policing met on Wednesday night and heard pointed criticism from former Sinn Féin ardchomhairle member Gerry McGeogh. He said that senior Sinn Féin members were "waddling into 10 Downing Street for orders from the British government".
"There is nothing for us to do in 10 Downing Street. All 10 Downing Street have to do is say they are leaving Ireland once and for all."
Mr Adams said: "It is always easy to draw a crowd in terms of a 'tiocfaidh ár lá' speech. We're not going to be drawn into silly name-calling."
Looking ahead to next week's report by the Policing Ombudsman into alleged loyalist-RUC collusion, Mr Adams said he thought Nuala O'Loan's report would "vindicate everything we have said".
"It will indicate there was collusion and it will show some of the dastardly things that were done by police officers." He said this would act as an argument for republicans to become involved in policing. "Unionists will have to ask themselves when they hear this report next week, was this done in their name?" The key for democratic parties was to keep the police services in both parts of Ireland democratically accountable, he added.