Act 'paves way for justice move'

Peter Robinson was in London for talks with Gordon Brown

Legislation paving the way for the devolution of policing and justice powers is to be shown to members of the NI Executive on Thursday.

First Minister Peter Robinson said the enabling legislation should be ready for this week's executive meeting.

The draft legislation will become law after it is endorsed by the assembly which is in recess from Wednesday.

Mr Robinson also said it was likely that any future justice minister would come from the Alliance Party.

There was, however, still no agreement on how much money would be given by London to Stormont once police and justice powers are devolved.

Speaking after talks with Prime Minister Gordon Brown in London, Mr Robinson said: "With regard to policing and justice powers, I defined for the prime minister how I would seek to measure whether sufficient community confidence existed for the transfer of functions.

"I will, at an appropriate point, be seeking meetings with the other party leaders in the assembly in order to establish whether their parties view sufficient community confidence does exist to allow devolution of these additional powers to occur.

"Only when we have established that it is the case will such a transfer take place.

"I would not expect any of the party leaders to express a final view on such a matter until they were aware of the outcome of funding for the new department."

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