Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams met with PSNI Chief Constable Hugh Orde today, the first such meeting since the republican party made its recent decision to support policing.
He led a delegation to PSNI headquarters in east Belfast for 90 minutes of round table talks with Sir Hugh Orde which he described as "an upfront discussion on a range of issues".
Mr Adams said: "We think this is a very important first step in a whole process of delivering a new relationship between our community and the police.
"We as a leadership are satisfied that in terms of community policing that a new relationship can be produced in dealing with all of the crimes which beset the community — muggings, violence in the home, drug abuse and drug pushing, death riders, hate crimes and all aspects of such criminality.
"We went through all of that in some great detail." He said it was not just the responsibility of the police to deal with those issues, there had to be an input from society as well.
The Sinn Féin leader said the more vexed issues they had discussed had centred on the Northern Ireland Police Ombudsman's recent report on collusion.
Nuala O'Loan said in her report last month that there had been collusion between police and loyalist paramilitaries in up to 15 murders in just one area of Belfast.
Mr Adams said they had also raised the issue of police preventing the inquests into deaths of republicans sometimes decades ago.
He said today was the 15th anniversary of the killing of four IRA men in Co. Tyrone and so far their families had been denied the right to an inquest. He said: "We dealt with these issues in some detail and I see today's meeting as one in the start of a process of engagements so we all get policing right."
He declined to be drawn on whether Sir Hugh was a person he thought he could do business with but made the point that he was untainted in republican eyes as a member of the old RUC. He said: "He has not been part of what past for policing for a very long time."
The Chief Constable made no comment after the meeting deciding to treat it as he would discussions with any other political party.