SF Opposes Ritchie Calls For Police Primacy

Sinn Fein have condemned a nationalist call for the PSNI to again run secret anti-terror operations instead of members of MI5.

The party's policing spokesman was commenting in the wake of the SDLP leader Margaret Ritchie's news that she is seeking urgent meetings with both the Irish Republic's Taoiseach, Brian Cowen and the NIO Secretary of State Owen Paterson.

Speaking just after a bomb aimed at the PSNI in Co Armagh injured three children on Saturday, she said last night that she wants to press them on what she said is the need for "new approaches" to dealing with the threat of dissident violence.

She has railed against the primacy of the Security Service, MI5, which has been responsible for national security issues in Northern Ireland since 2007.

The SDLP politician argued it is wrong that the Stormont Justice Minister or the NI Police Ombudsman does not hold MI5 accountable.

"It would be better for the PSNI to have an intelligence-led service. The Gardaí in the South have been given the capacity of intelligence-led policing and can go out and deal with them under the due process of the law," she said.

However, a Sinn Fein spokesperson, Alex Maskey has this morning said that his party would actively oppose SDLP leader Margaret Ritchie's plan.

Mr Maskey said: "When Margaret Ritchie calls for intelligence gathering to be located within the PSNI what she actually means is a return to the past.

"The practical outworking of what she is calling for is the embedding of MI5 into the PSNI.

"She is in effect calling for the 'malign influence' of MI5 to be allowed to contaminate the new policing structures of the PSNI," he fumed.

He said: "The PSNI have an investigative wing which works within the accountability mechanism and have made clear they have full access to all intelligence.

"NI Policing Board members, including SDLP members, are routinely briefed on this."

But the SDLP leader insisted that "it is time for everyone to face up to some inconvenient political truths about this violence".

She said: "It is now very clear that MI5 is not up to the task of leading intelligence gathering and by sidelining or standing down their political wings the dissident gangs have cut the flow of human intelligence."

She also said there is no evidence that MI5 puts a high priority on the dissident threat beyond providing some signals and background intelligence.

She claimed this may amount to nothing more than "listening to gossip and monitoring a few dodgy websites" and insisted: "The whole point about MI5 intelligence primacy since 2007 is that it was really just a political fix designed to ease Sinn Fein's path onto the NI Policing Board and thus into power in the Executive."

"The SDLP believes we need an aggressive, high-profile, all-Ireland intelligence-gathering operation based on the bond of trust which has grown between police and public.

"We believe the relative success of An Gardaí Siochana demonstrates the need for a new approach and that the PSNI should again lead intelligence-gathering.

"We believe the people will rally to protect their accountable, representative policing service if they are asked properly.

"I will be pressing An Taoiseach and the Secretary of State to raise north-south policing and intelligence-gathering to a new level now, before we suffer another major tragedy."

The call comes just two days a bomb attack in Lurgan was branded as being very like the Omagh atrocity - 12 years before this weekend's blast.

A senior police officer told the BBC that when the children were injured in an explosion in Lurgan on Saturday the bomb attack had "stark similarities" with the Omagh atrocity.

Chief Inspector Sam Cordner said police received a vague warning suggesting a bomb had been left at a primary school when the device was a few streets away.

It happened a day before the 12th anniversary of the Real IRA Omagh attack which killed 29 people.

On that day, an inaccurate telephoned warning to police meant people were directed towards the bomb.

(BMcC/KMcA)