£800m at stake over devolution
EXTRA funding worth £800 million could be lost if the Northern Ireland Assembly fails to agree the transfer of policing and justice powers, Shaun Woodward has warned.
Plans for a new policing college and more community policing would be disrupted were MLAs to oppose plans to switch security powers from London to Belfast, the Northern Ireland Secretary added.
A crucial vote is expected on Tuesday with the Ulster Unionist Party vowing to oppose the move. The change was expected to go ahead on April 12 under the Hillsborough Castle blueprint with full cross-community support.
Mr Woodward said: "When Assembly members go into the lobby next Tuesday not only do they have the responsibility of ensuring the peace process is cemented and that the political institutions continue. The 800 million of additional money which the Prime Minister has made available for the new justice department will not be available (without a yes vote).
"The chief constable has made a number of assumptions with the Policing Board for spending on policing in Northern Ireland for the coming years.
"Those assumptions are fundamentally based on discovering the 800 million additional money."
He said there was no question of him taking any security risks but he warned that community policing would be affected.
"People would have to explain why there would be no additional money to deal with all the issues that arise," he added.
The UUP says it would prefer to see fresh Assembly elections and insists there is not community confidence yet to allow the transfer to an Alliance Party minister.
Traditional Unionist Voice leader Jim Allister has opposed allowing Sinn Fein any say in the running of a justice department because of what he dubs its terrorist past.
DUP Enterprise Minister Arlene Foster said yesterday: "TUV tell us that the completion of devolution with the transfer of policing and justice powers from London to Belfast is somehow a diminution of our Britishness.
"That then must also apply to health, education and economic development powers (which) were exercised from London between the fall of the Stormont parliament and the establishment of devolution.
"This exposes the underlying truth of what TUV policy would actually deliver, an end to devolution and the restoration of direct rule."
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Sunday 27 May 2012
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