Northern Ireland backs transfer of key powers despite row
Posted: 10 March 2010 0355 hrs

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BELFAST: Northern Ireland's lawmakers approved on Tuesday a landmark deal on transferring key powers from London to Belfast, after a stormy debate and a rare intervention from former US president George W. Bush.

Leaders of the two main power-sharing parties voted in favour of switching control over policing and justice powers from London to Belfast, but failed to persuade the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) to join them.

The vote in the Northern Ireland Assembly was passed by 88 votes in favour to 17 against.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown hailed the result, with the deal the final major piece in the devolution process which started in 1998.

"Today the politics of progress have finally replaced the politics of division in Northern Ireland," he said in a statement.

"The completion of devolution, supported by all sections of the community in Northern Ireland, is the final end to decades of strife.

"It sends the most powerful message to those who would return to violence: that democracy and tolerance will prevail," he said.

Under the deal, policing and justice powers - a highly sensitive issue due to Northern Ireland's bloody sectarian history - are expected to transfer from London to Belfast on April 12.

The agreement was carved out last month after days of negotiations between the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and Sinn Fein, the one-time foes who now share power in a devolved government.

"There must be no going back to the bad old days of the past," said First Minister Peter Robinson shortly before the result was announced.

On the eve of the vote, Bush had called the leader of Britain's main opposition Conservatives, David Cameron, in the hope of persuading him to talk his UUP allies out of opposing the deal.

Although a UUP no-vote does not wreck the deal, there are fears the accord could prove unsustainable without all-party support.

Conservative leader Cameron confirmed the talks with Bush, and insisted his party has done everything it could to promote an accord in Northern Ireland - including backing an offer of 800 million pounds to support a new Department of Justice in Belfast.

The Conservatives are just ahead of Brown's ruling Labour party in opinion polls ahead of a general election likely on May 6. The Tories will field joint candidates with the UUP in Northern Ireland.

The UUP had sounded uncompromising ahead of the vote.

Its leader Reg Empey has said his party faced "blackmail and bullying" while Ken Maginnis, a senior UUP member now in Britain's House of Lords, described policing and justice in Northern Ireland as "a broken machine".

"What on earth do they (Bush and the US congressmen) know about day-to-day security and justice in Northern Ireland?" he told BBC radio.

The UUP, like the DUP, is Protestant and favours Northern Ireland remaining part of Britain. Sinn Fein is Catholic and wants Northern Ireland to become part of a united Ireland.

Northern Ireland's three decades of violence known as The Troubles, in which more than 3,500 people died, were largely ended by a 1998 peace deal.

But sporadic violence still plagues the province, including the killing of two British soldiers and a policeman last year. - AFP/de