Sinn Féin to take seats on reconstituted Policing Board

The Policing Board has been unable to meet in recent months due to the impasse at Stormont

Sinn Féin's vice-president Michelle O'Neill says her party will take their places on the Policing Board when it is reconstituted later this year.

The board has not been able to meet in recent months, because it has no political appointees as a result of the deadlock at Stormont.

NI Secretary Karen Bradley has pledged to nominate new members.

She is due to introduce legislation next month to allow a number of key public appointments to be made.

Both the chair of the Policing Board, Anne Connolly, and the Chief Constable of the PSNI, George Hamilton, have previously said they are concerned about the lack of oversight for the PSNI in the continued absence of Stormont.

Interviewed for BBC Radio Ulster's Inside Politics programme, Ms O'Neill said "the policing project was a very difficult project because of the nature of society here".

'Pandering to the DUP'

"We are supportive of the Policing Board being re-established and we will take our positions.

"We have to speak to the Northern Ireland Office (NIO) in terms of how that is taken forward and we are actively engaged in conversation with them."

Although Ms O'Neill backs Ms Bradley's actions in relation to the Policing Board, she remains scathing about other elements of the secretary of state's latest proposals regarding the Stormont impasse.

Karen Bradley is due to introduce legislation next month regarding the Policing Board

She accused Ms Bradley of "pandering to the DUP" and described the NIO's ideas about giving civil servants more flexibility to take decisions as a "sideshow and a distraction".

The Sinn Féin deputy leader criticised the government proposal to create a moratorium during which there should be no legal duty to call an election as "ridiculous and undermining the Agreement".

Ms O'Neill was also pressed about Máiría Cahill's rejection of Sinn Féin's apology regarding the party's handling of her complaint that she had been abused as a teenager by an IRA man.

Ms Cahill says she was asked to attend what has been described as an IRA "kangaroo court" where she was forced to meet the man she claims abused her.

Asked if she believes Máiría Cahill's account, Ms O'Neill said she commended Ms Cahill for waiving her anonymity, acknowledging that was not an easy thing to do. She also repeated an apology that the party did not have the correct procedures in place to deal with abuse cases in the 1990s when Ms Cahill originally complained to senior republicans.

'No need' for second Brexit vote

"It's not for me to say that I believe Máiría Cahill, I believe she has been a victim, I believe that she has been hurt, that she has been traumatised, I believe she has been through an awful lot in recent years. I wish her the very best for the future, that she is able to move on and have a good life and not to be continuously re-traumatised by this issue."

On Brexit, Ms O'Neill re-iterated her criticism of Theresa May's handling of the negotiations and explained why Sinn Féin is not backing calls for a new referendum.

The party this week declined to back a motion on the topic at Belfast City Council.

"The people here don't want Brexit, so we do not need a second referendum. We have spoken. We have said this is our position and that remains the case," said Ms O'Neill.

She described Brexit as bad but denied accusations that republicans are happy to run Northern Ireland into the ground.

But Ms O'Neill also argued that Brexit has changed the political context by creating a debate about how people can remain within the EU in the context of a new Ireland.