The SDLP and Sinn Féin yesterday continued to challenge each other over policing change, legislation, and the possible future transfer of powers to the assembly.
Alex Attwood, SDLP assembly member for West Belfast, said his party stood firm on the issue of policing change through securing new legislation and far-reaching decisions of the Policing Board.
He claimed that Sinn Féin was in a policing vacuum saying much and changing nothing.
But Sinn Féin's Michelle Gildernew said that the SDLP should come clean on the issue of the transfer of policing and justice powers to the Northern Ireland Assembly.
"Is it a core SDLP demand, or is it not?
"This is a serious issue and the SDLP cannot continue to adopt differing positions," the MP for Fermanagh and South Tyrone said.
But Mr Attwood said there was growing evidence that it was the SDLP which could deliver real changes to policing.
He emphasised that the last two weeks provided the latest evidence.
There had been significant advances on policing legislation including:
- the Police Ombudsman now has the power to investigate past police policies and practices
- Police Ombudsman's power to investigate past complaint against the police has not been tampered with
- The ability of the Secretary of State to block a board inquiry on sensitive 'personal' grounds has been abandoned
- the right of the Policing Board to receive all information from an inquiry, including that which might put an individual at risk, has been won.
Mr Attwood, SDLP policing spokesman, said his party was continuing to meet British ministers and officials to ensure that the new legislation met the Patten/Weston Park tests.
"Some further work is yet required but the SDLP is fully confident that further talks including a meeting this Wednesday with the Secretary of State will secure this outcome," he said.
"At the same time the SDLP inside and outside the Policing Board are radically changing the practice of policing."
Mr Attwood referred to a human rights code for all officers, far beyond the words of an oath.
He also singled out the extension of the Oversight Commissioner's office for two and a half years, legislation by Easter on Garda entry to the PSNI, the appointment in a couple of weeks of the district policing partnerships with representative nationalist participation, the recruitment of nearly 1,100 catholics out of 1,500 recruits in the new community police reserve and the requirement on police officers to declare membership of secret societies including the Orange Order.
But Ms Gildernew said yesterday that the SDLP should clarify its position on the transfer of powers.
She said: "For well over a year Sinn Féin has been pressing the British government to transfer powers on policing and justice to the assembly and the executive.
"This is not a substitute for getting policing right but it is a vital and logical component of the Good Friday process.
"At first SDLP leader Mark Durkan said publicly that while he agreed in principle with the idea he didn't believe that the time was right for such a move.
"Then we had Seamus Mallon in the Commons where he spoke out against the concept.
"Within days Alex Attwood announced that the transfer of powers was a central SDLP demand."
Ms Gildernew added: "The SDLP should come clean. They either support the Sinn Féin position or they do not."
