Allister Hits Back on Policing and Justice
26 October 2009
“It ill-becomes Jeffrey Donaldson to issue statements accusing others of misleading people on policing and justice when he was the man who told the Prime Minister it would be “entirely wrong to devolve policing and justice powers to the Northern Ireland Assembly while the IRA Army Council remains in place” (House of Commons, 12th March 2008).
“Now the Army Council has been forgotten!
“As far as payments back of money from the reserve are concerned, it states in black and white in the Prime Minister’s letter that any extra funds needed for Legal Aid drawn down after 2012/13 will indeed to be recouped from the Department of Justice’s EYF (End of Year Flexablity).
“On hearing loss, the letter makes clear that the £12 million per annum will be met by the Treasury “buying” assets to that value from Northern Ireland so there is certainly no gift of money to the devolved administration there.
“The issue of financing policing and justice is far from being as clear cut as the DUP would like to pretend. And that is before we even come to what happens about money drawn from the reserve for meeting 'exceptional security pressures'.
