SDLP Leader Slammed For MI5 Comments

There has been an angry response to yesterday's call to give the North's police back its former lead role in intelligence gathering.

Speaking after SDLP leader Margaret Ritchie claimed that MI5 should hand over dissident republican intelligence to the PSNI as it had failed to prevent terror attacks across NI. DUP MP Jeffrey Donaldson said there is no evidence of a lack of intelligence flow between MI5 and the police.

Political foes also united as Sinn Fein also slammed the proposal as potentially "creating Special Branch mark 2".

Ms Ritchie said that police should replace MI5 in its intelligence-gathering role, adding that she believes it is wrong that the Stormont Justice Minister or the Police Ombudsman does not hold MI5 accountable.

"It would be better for the PSNI to have an intelligence-led service. The Gardaí in the south have been given the capacity of intelligence-led policing and can go out and deal with them under the due process of the law," the South Down MP said.

However, Ulster Unionist Policing Board member Basil McCrea - who is also a potential new party leader - accused the SDLP and Sinn Fein of "petty point scoring and political grandstanding".

"The suggestion that there are intelligence difficulties is more about Margaret Ritchie's personal, political agenda than about a genuine knowledge of the challenges being faced by the PSNI," he said.

"MI5 is working hard to bring the dissidents to their knees – all of us in the political sphere should be showing a similar level of commitment."

Yesterday, as reported on SF Opposes Ritchie Calls For Police Primacy, Sinn Fein's Alex Maskey said: "When Margaret Ritchie calls for intelligence gathering to be located within the PSNI what she actually means is a return to the past.

"The practical outworking of what she is calling for is the embedding of MI5 into the PSNI. She is in effect calling for the malign influence of MI5 to be allowed to contaminate the new policing structures of the PSNI."

Also adding his voice, the DUP MLA and NI Policing Board member Jimmy Spratt said: "MI5 and the other intelligence services play a key and vital role in the defence of the United Kingdom from terrorism.

"The dissident Republican terrorist campaign is designed to overthrow a democratic government and the established will of the people of Northern Ireland.

"No weapon in the armoury of the state should be off limits when it comes to combating the threat posed by murderous Republicans."

(BMcC/KMcA)