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Date Posted: 00:45:14 03/11/08 Tue GMT
Author: Lynn
Subject: SF seeks more NI powers (Washington Post)

Sinn Fein Seeks More N.Ireland Powers

By SHAWN POGATCHNIK
The Associated Press
Monday, March 10, 2008; 9:05 PM


DUBLIN, Ireland -- Sinn Fein, the major Catholic-backed party in Northern Ireland, wants to take control of the police and courts by May _ and warned Monday of renewed political instability in the British territory if it did not get its way.

After meeting with Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern, Sinn Fein leaders got Irish support for the goal but not the deadline, which has been called unrealistic given Protestant opposition.

Ahern said his government, like Britain, believed that "the time is right for the parties to move forward and take the final steps towards full devolution (of powers) and full normality."

But he declined to endorse the May target for transferring control of the justice system from Britain to Northern Ireland's Catholic-Protestant coalition.

Sinn Fein leaders Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness said that, if they did not gain control of the justice system by then, it would demonstrate that power-sharing was faltering and could spook foreign investors.

"Any suggestion of instability in the political institutions ... risks undermining the investment potential of the economic conference," Adams said in a statement.

Britain and Ireland had set a target for transferring powers to a Justice Department in Belfast one year after Protestant and Catholic leaders formed a coalition in May 2007.

But Protestant leaders fear Sinn Fein will appoint an IRA veteran to oversee justice. Britain has said such an impasse could lead to the transfer being delayed until at least 2009.

The outlawed Irish Republican Army killed about 1,775 people, including nearly 300 police officers, in a failed 1970-1997 campaign to force Northern Ireland out of the United Kingdom. The underground group disarmed and renounced violence in 2005, but has yet to disband _ the Protestant side's remaining demand.

Power-sharing was the central goal of Northern Ireland's Good Friday peace accord of 1998.
© 2008 The Associated Press

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