SF president calls for an end to punishment beatings

The Sinn Fein president, Mr Gerry Adams, has called for an end to punishment beatings in Northern Ireland.

Speaking to The Irish Times after an engagement in Tallaght, Co Dublin, Mr Adams said he was "concerned" about the number of such incidents in Belfast and Derry.

However, he said the beatings had to be placed in the context of the disillusionment many residents of nationalist areas felt about the RUC.

"I live in an area which hasn't had a policing service. Whatever criticism people may have about the Garda Siochana, they are accepted as a policing service and they work alongside people.

"That isn't to excuse those who carry out punishment beatings or any of that. But what we need to do is to get a policing service that people from areas like this [Tallaght] or areas like Ballymurphy or the Bogside or any of these urban estates can join.

"Secondly, we need to work with young people - not all young people are involved in anti-social activity - so that they have ownership, so that they have a share in society, that they aren't marginalised and they aren't without jobs, [so that] they aren't no-hopers, that they aren't limited to stealing cars.

"You have to see the other side of the coin of the anger within those communities which have suffered an awful lot and which are now enjoying the beginning and the potential of a peace process."

Mr Adams said in his constituency at least six people had been killed "by thieves in cars". Those killed included a district nurse, a young mother, and a child, he said.

"They should stop of course, the punishment beatings should stop, but the way to build properly is to build a society in which everyone has a share." The RUC believes that close to 120 punishment beatings and shootings have been carried out since the beginning of this year. Loyalists are said to have carried out 36 shootings and 35 beatings, while republicans were responsible for 25 beatings and 21 shootings, according to the RUC press office.

The force has noticed an intensification in the violence of such beatings over the last two years.