Adams speech: policing

Adams sketches the Sinn Fein position on policing:

"We are arguing for the Good Friday Agreement vision of policing to become a reality. And that means the British government moving beyond its Weston Park position. It also means that the Irish government and the SDLP need to assert this as a matter of the unfinished work of the Good Friday Agreement. An acceptable policing service is crucial for all sections of our people in the north. It is also in the better interests of all of the people of this island. And if power can be transferred on a range of key issues, there is no reason why policing and justice cannot be devolved on the same basis.

"So, consequently I can conceive of a world in which it would be appropriate for Sinn Féin to join the Policing Board and participate fully in the policing arrrangements on a democratic basis. That has to be when there is a proper beginning to policing, as agreed in the Good Friday Agreement and as recommended by Patten."

And he notes:

"Nationalists and republicans also need to be convinced, as do in my view a lot of unionists, that the toleration by British agencies of unionist paramilitaries has ended."

Previously Blair's speech.