Parties at loggerheads over justice ministry
By Noel McAdam
Friday, February 02, 2007
The main political parties at Stormont have clashed over the structure of a future justice ministry - but reached consensus on a number of other issues.
Both the DUP and UUP favour a single minister for the new Justice Department, while Sinn Fein suggests a ‘job-share’ - two ministers sharing equal status.
It is a proposal similar to the co-equal nature of the First and Deputy First Ministers office, which could see a joint DUP and Sinn Fein ministry, such as Policing Board member Ian Paisley jnr and Sinn Fein policing spokesman Gerry Kelly.
There is no agreement, however, on how a minister should be appointed, with Sinn Fein, the SDLP and the UUP supporting the d’Hondt system, while the DUP is in favour of the election of a minister by a 70% weighted majority of the Assembly.
Predictably, there was also no agreement on the sub-group over the timing of the devolution of policing and justice to the Assembly. The St Andrews Agreement target date is May, 2008.
Another group working on the controversial review of public administration and rural planning has called for even more unelected quangos to be axed.
Its report voices concern that the review, which reduces the number of councils from 26 to seven, “had not resulted in more significant cuts in the number of quangos and considers that further reductions should be made.”
With only Sinn Fein in favour of cutting the councils to seven, the report says the committee agreed it would be preferable for the parties to seek consensus on the number of councils.
The reports are designed to help shape priorities and policings so an incoming, power-sharing Executive - if it is formed - can hit the ground running.
Thus the RPA group report called on the incoming Executive to carry out a review of planning within Northern Ireland .
Similarly, the group probing the comprehensive spending review, including water reform and rates charges, called on the future Executive to ” consider again all the potential alternative models for reform”.
The conclusions come in the reports of the six sub-groups of the Programme for Government committee.
