DUP leader slams Sinn Fein over policing 'threats'
Friday September 26 2008
The Northern Ireland Executive has been held hostage to Sinn Fein's demands on policing, Peter Robinson said tonight.
Republicans have issued threats and eroded confidence in the power-sharing devolution so far achieved, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) leader claimed.
The Executive has not met for more than three months after Sinn Fein boycotted it over lack of progress towards handing policing responsibilities to a local minister.
Mr Robinson told a meeting in Fermanagh: ``Having agreed the context for devolution and having agreed the mechanism through which progress could be made, you will know how disappointed we were when, instead of engaging in this process, threats were issued and the Executive was held hostage on the issue.
``I do not respond well to threats.''
The First Minister said he would not be pushed or bullied into moving on policing and added that such powers would not be placed in the hands of a Sinn Fein minister.
``What we need to do now is not to blockade the Executive but to use the agreed processes and seek to reach agreement and build confidence in the community for this to take place.
``There is one certainty - Sinn Fein's harmful obstruction of Executive business is eroding confidence not only in devolving new powers but in the devolution we have already achieved.''
