“David Ford’s department is like Jurassic Park.”

Apparently, according to BBC NI’s Martina Purdy, Sinn Féin’s Gerry Kelly, MLA, Northern Ireland Junior Minister Policing Board member, gave “a fiery speech on the Police Ombudsman” at the party’s ard fheis at the weekend.  It’s not listed in the party’s collection…

[Added by AlaninBelfast …]

In the Irish News today, Diana Rusk says he went “off script” when telling the Chief Constable, Matt Baggott, that he “must face down the dinosaurs” in the PSNI.  Being “off script” might explain why Gerry Kelly seems to have borrowed his party colleague, and noted plagiarist, Raymond McCartney’s punch-line in his “keynote address”.

Our strategy for transforming justice and policing in the six counties is working

Just look at the carnival of reaction around us.

Without transfer of powers on policing and justice, there would be no Justice Committee in the local Assembly.

We wouldn’t have the chance this week, to question the Police Ombudsman about his role in this scandal.

We wouldn’t have a Minister for Justice to answer for the complicity of officials in his new Department in a sabotage campaign against the Office of the Police Ombudsman.

David Ford’s department is like Jurassic Park. It is full of the dinosaurs and relics of an old order. The Minister needs to be more than a spokesman for the department.

I think “the complicity of officials in his new Department in a sabotage campaign against the Office of the Police Ombudsman” is a reference to Tony McCusker’s finding that

The question of the Senior Director of Investigations being party to a controversial note prepared by DFP consultants which was then referenced in a subsequent grievance case taken against the Chief Executive, is a serious cause for concern.

Which would be a bit of a stretch.

But, if Sinn Féin aren’t happy with David Ford as Northern Ireland Justice Minister then they, and the DUP, can always find someone else to agree on…

They, both parties, have to agree on someone by 1 May 2012.