NI Executive 'being held hostage'

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The Northern Ireland Executive has been held hostage to Sinn Fein's demands on policing, Peter Robinson has said.

The Democratic Unionist Party leader claimed republicans have issued threats and eroded confidence in power-sharing.

The Executive has not met for months after Sinn Fein boycotted it over lack of progress towards handing policing responsibilities to a local minister.

Mr Robinson told a DUP function in Lisnaskea County Fermanagh: "I do not respond well to threats."

The first minister said he would not be pushed or bullied into moving on policing and added that such powers would not be placed in the hands of a Sinn Fein minister.

"What we need to do now is not to blockade the Executive but to use the agreed processes and seek to reach agreement, and build confidence in the community for this to take place.

"There is one certainty - Sinn Fein's harmful obstruction of Executive business is eroding confidence not only in devolving new powers but in the devolution we have already achieved."

Mr Robinson was addressing supporters in Fermanagh, where the party won a by-election victory over Sinn Fein earlier this month.

On policing, he said devolution was a unionist ideal.

"Our terms are unalterable. We will take our decision based on content not the calendar," he said.

"We want devolution to take place, and it will, but only when the essential conditions have been met.

"The other key condition for us is attaining support and confidence from the community in the structures and in those who will operate them."

A Sinn Fein spokesman said the DUP leader needed "to make it clear whether he supports the St Andrews Agreement, because that was the basis on which the institutions were resurrected".