UUP's McCrea Blasts Donaldson

A senior Ulster Unionist has hit out at DUP MP Jeffrey Donaldson's "inconsistencies" over the devolution of policing and justice powers to the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Basil McCrea (pictured) accused Mr Donaldson "throwing stones from his glass house".

Last night peers in Westminster gave final backing to the Parliamentary orders necessary to establish a new Department of Justice at Stormont on 12 April.

Speaking during a Commons debate on the issue earlier this week, Mr Donaldson said the time right for security and judiciary responsibilities to rest in local hands.

"There is no alternative but to move this process forward - difficult though it is, challenging though it is," he told MPs.

"We must offer to this generation, and to the next, the hope of something better.

"And if that means that we have got to work with people with whom we have difficulties, with whom we have had past differences - then if that is the price to be paid for the hope of peace in Northern Ireland, it's a price that I and my party and others have been willing to pay."

Mr McCrea, the UUP's policing spokesman, accused the DUP of "Gerrymandering" Alliance leader David Ford into the post of Justice Minister.

"Can Jeffrey tell us why he thinks Mr Ford is the ideal Minister of Justice? Would he care to tell us what he thinks about Mr Ford's assertions that the Parachute Regiment acted 'unlawfully' on Bloody Sunday?

"That timely outburst aside, David Ford is simply not entitled to the Justice Ministry. Gerrymandering him into office shows no respect for the democratically expressed will of the electorate," he said.

The Unionist Assemblyman said it was "ludicrous" that the DUP would attempt to "dictate" how the UUP should vote on matters at Stormont.

"It might be considered audacious if it wasn't so ludicrous," he said.

"The UUP is a democratic party and will meet to consider the matter on Monday 12 April. Until then Jeffrey would do better to consider the inconsistencies in his own personal position - as he sits side-by-side with people he was once committed to oppose - rather than indulging in idle speculation."

Mr McCrea suggested Stormont was being run by a "diktat of a two-party coalition".

(PR/BMcC)