The Ulster Unionist Party’s Policing Board member Ross Hussey MLA has responded to Gerry Kelly’s latest comments regarding the PSNI’s policing of the past as another attempt to blacken the name of policing in Northern Ireland.    

Mr Hussey said;

“The PSNI is one of the most strictly supervised police services in the world.  This includes a Policing Board on which Mr Kelly and two of his party colleagues sit, providing them with ample opportunity to state their case and hold the police to account.  

“The arrest of Gerry Adams clearly rattled senior republicans and that case is still subject to a decision from the Public Prosecution Service.  The past is always going to be difficult to 'police', due to the 30 plus years of sheer terror visited upon the community by republican and loyalist murder gangs, as the Police struggled bravely to hold the line. The “dark side” lay not in policing, but in those who lived in the shadows and plotted how best to murder policemen, soldiers and civilians, and to bomb towns and destroy the economy and jobs.

 “I utterly condemn without reservation those who carried out the Dublin and Monaghan bombings and I have no difficulty calling for the release of any information held by the British Government that may assist bringing the terrorists responsible to justice. I would also call on the Government of the Republic of Ireland to release any information they hold in relation to links between successive Irish Governments and the IRA.

“There are two sides to every story. It is a fact that the majority of terrorist attacks and murders carried out in Northern Ireland during the Troubles were carried out by the IRA. Those of us in West Tyrone and other Border areas are acutely aware that many of these attacks originated in the Republic and it was to the safe haven of the Republic that the murder gangs escaped. The Dublin Government would do well to examine the ease with which this happened over a very long period of time.

“To deal with the past we require the IRA to reveal the full list of their crimes including gun attacks, bombings, murders and details of all those 'hidden from view' who colluded with the IRA in setting people up for murder. Terrorists must give full detail of their crimes and Sinn Fein must divulge the secret deals they agreed with Tony Blair, including Royal Pardons, letters of comfort and others as yet unknown.”