THE Sinn Fein leadership has voted in favour of holding an extraordinary ard fheis on policing in Dublin in two weeks’ time.

At the conference on January 28, Gerry Adams will propose a motion that will, for the first time in the party’s 102-year history, permit the party’s leadership to support the Northern Ireland police, the gardai and the court system.

Last night’s decision, taken after a marathon six hours of discussion by the party’s ruling ard comhairle, is conditional on power-sharing being restored. It will give the ard comhairle the right to implement the motion after further negotiation when power-sharing is restored, but does not compel it to do so.

This means that the motion must be referred back to the ard comhairle for final ratification even after it is passed at the ard fheis and does not give the Democratic Unionist party the degree of certainty or the testing period they demanded.

Adams used similar tactics to achieve IRA decommissioning. This will allow him to present the motion at the ard fheis as one of trust in the leadership. The Sinn Fein president described the decision as “historic and courageous”, saying that he wanted to replace British ministers with local ones. “Policing can’t be left to unionists, it is non-partisan,” he said. He added that he intended to hold meetings across the country to discuss the issue further.

The motion that will be put to the ard fheis was not published in full but it is understood that its main provisions are:

• Support for An Garda Siochana, the PSNI and the criminal justice system, north and south.
• Taking up places on the Northern Ireland Policing Board and the north’s local district policing partnerships. Sinn Fein has so far boycotted these bodies and even organised pickets of their meetings.
• Authorising Sinn Fein ministers who gain power-sharing ministries in the Stormont assembly to take a ministerial pledge of office committing them to support for law and order and to participate fully in the executive and north-south bodies.
• Actively encouraging their supporters to co-operate with the police services in tackling crime and actively supporting all the criminal justice institutions.
  
  The party will also seek an end to the use of plastic bullets and the removal from the police of anyone guilty of human rights abuses.

  Yesterday’s decision came despite the refusal of the DUP to give Sinn Fein the cast-iron assurances it had demanded on power-sharing and the devolution of policing powers.

  The Rev William McCrea, the hard-line DUP MP for South Antrim, said his party had refused to throw Adams a lifeline. In return, Adams has given the DUP a motion less clear cut than it would have liked.

  Peter Robinson, the DUP deputy leader, suggested that his party would only move to power-sharing and the devolution of policing and justice once Sinn Fein had actually delivered support for the police.

  “It is important that Sinn Fein have taken a decision but it is ultimately actions on the ground that will matter,” he said. “It is the delivery element that is the key to progress being made. I hope that not only does the wording indicate a real intention to give support to the police and the courts but that behind it is the mechanism to ensure that it is delivered on the ground.”

  “Everything depends on the quality of delivery”, he added, but refused to commit himself to a timetable.

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