Woodward on Policing, UDA

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Woodward on Policing, UDA

October 25, 2007

By Cahir O’Doherty

DESPITE recent setbacks, Northern Ireland Secretary Shaun Woodward has claimed that the transfer of criminal justice powers to the North will continue on schedule. He also insisted that all sides must now work to help Loyalist communities in the grip of paramilitarism to free themselves its shackles.

During an interview with the Irish Voice at the British Consulate in New York last Thursday, Woodward said, “The first thing to say about the Assembly and the Executive is that these are very early months. We are six months into this, it’s fledgling, and it’s still finding its way. In that context it’s doing incredibly well, through the leadership of the First Minister Ian Paisley and the Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness.”

Asked about the recent refusal by SDLP Social Development Minister Margaret Ritchie to hand over £1.2 million for urban projects linked to the Ulster Defense Association (UDA), Woodward stated, “This is a matter for the Assembly and the Executive. Decommissioning remains our responsibility.

“My predecessor Peter Hain made a sum of money available to help communities that were in the grip of paramilitary activity to get out of that grip. I have no doubt that that was the right idea and as a policy to want to help them get out of that grip has to be the right thing to do.”

Ritchie’s announcement to pull the funding came after a 60-day deadline she had given the UDA to start decommissioning its weapons after violence during the summer passed without action. Woodward acknowledged that it was Ritchie’s responsibility to allocate as she saw fit and he denied categorically that funding was being given to the UDA.

For Woodward, the real silver lining is that the executive and the assembly are learning to work together. Anticipating the difficulties ahead, he nonetheless remained optimistic that politics was now being constructed through the institutions, and not outside them.

“What they’re doing is playing out before us the difficulty of being in government. That’s what we all wanted them to do, and they’re doing it,” he said. Significant progress on policing was also an indication that the institutions were working well in advance of the transfers of policing powers next spring.

Said Woodward: “Devolution completes the process of confidence building on both sides of the community. When it happens it will feel like the inevitable consequence of the work that is going on rather than something that suddenly has to be decided next spring.”

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