Republican News · Thursday 11 April 2002

McLaughlin responds to Hume

Responding to a statement from John Hume on policing and Sinn Féin's refusal to participate in the present Policing Board, Sinn Féin National Chairperson Mitchel McLaughlin said:

"The attempt by John Hume to connect the unwarranted and inexcusable attack on the home of Eugene McMenamin to the policing issue is untenable. There is no evidence for such a claim. Sinn Féin has already condemned this and other attacks on elected representatives and John Hume should not diminish himself by making unfounded inferences.

"John Hume's claim that the conditions for Sinn Féin's participation in the Executive are at variance with our conditions for participation on the Policing Board is wrong. Sinn Féin ensured that all the checks and balances for transparency, accountability and representativeness were in place before we agreed to the establishment of the Assembly and Executive. Likewise, when we have true, transparency, accountability and representativeness in policing structures we will take our places but we will not be bullied or bounced into accepting anything less than we negotiated in the Good Friday Agreement.

"The PSNI is not such a service, as recent events in Derry and Belfast when doors were sledgehammered in and homes were ransacked have demonstrated. No amount of bluster or prevarication will change the fact that what is on offer is a repackaged, renamed RUC.

"If it is Mr Hume's assertion that the RUC can be changed to the PSNI from within the Policing Board, is it not logical to ask Mr Hume to explain why the SDLP did not join its forerunner, the Police Authority, and change the RUC from within?"