Campbell warns Sinn Féin

THE DUP's East Londonderry MP Gregory Campbell has issued his New Year message in which he has restated his belief that Sinn Féin has more progress to make.

Mr Campbell said the majority of people want to see policing and justice powers devolved to Stormont only when the time is right, and warned that the damage done by the IRA campaign of violence cannot be over-stated.

But he said 2010 can be a year for progress on a number of issues, including parades.

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Mr Campbell said: "It is difficult to over estimate the damage that the Republican Movement's 30 year campaign of attempted ethnic cleansing has done to the Unionist community. Even though it has been some 15 years since the Provisionals were forced to abandon their 'armed struggle' and some three years since their political wing had to concede that the days of unbridled concessions had ended, the wounds of the previous generation of murder run deep. They appear to have become accustomed to having offers made and their demands responded to, but now the new era is significantly different.

"The unfortunate issue for them is that they have allowed several generations of Republicans to believe the hyperbole that they were fed upon. Having swallowed the myths wholesale about disadvantage and discrimination they now have to convince the dissidents who not only believe this nonsense but continue to practice the methods that the Provos used for so long to combat it."

The MP added that Sinn Fein has demanded the devolution of Policing and Justice powers for several years, adding: "They claimed that they entered into a deal with the Government about the matter and are now demanding that the Government deliver on their part of the bargain. They know that we were never involved in the dealings they had but now expect us to agree with them.

"Policing and Justice is something that most people in both communities would like to see devolved, when the time is right. Because of their demands regarding the matter it is now seen as a SF issue. Parading is also a matter that most people want to see resolved, it hasn't been for years but whether it is seen as a DUP demand or not, it must also be delivered upon.

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"It need not turn into a scenario that SF have to wait for Policing and Justice as long as we have to wait for the protests against parading to be dissolved, but they both must be comprehensively resolved.

"2010 can be a year for much progress to be made on making Northern Ireland a genuinely better place for all of us who live here. It will be when those of us who are determined to move forward at the right pace and for the right reasons see the benefit in so doing, as a result of the last vestiges of violent republicanism being confined to the history books and the rest of us moving forward not as a result of pathetic and puerile threats to political institutions but as a result of standing up to such and not yielding, whatever the consequences."