Catholic confidence in the Police Service of Northern Ireland has risen over the past year, according to a survey out today.
As Sinn Féin continued to deliberate over whether it should publicly endorse the PSNI, the latest six month study by the province's Policing Board showed almost four fifths (79 per cent) of Catholics have total, a lot or some confidence in the PSNI.
This compared to 75 per cent in September of last year and 76 per cent in April.
Among Protestants, the confidence level remained the same over the past six months at 80 per cent.
The overall rating in the community was 79 per cent.
But public satisfaction with the performance of the PSNI in their communities slipped.
While a majority of those questioned in October (52 per cent) felt the police were doing a very or fairly good job in their areas, this was five per cent down on the rating 18 months ago and one per cent down on April's findings.
Among Protestants in this category, there was an 8 per cent drop in satisfaction levels over the past year-and-a-half (from 62 per cent to 54 per cent) while among Catholics over the same period it fell 4 per cent (53 per cent to 49 per cent).
A similar drop could be seen in the views of those surveyed about the PSNI's overall performance.
Among all those surveyed the satisfaction rating fell from 63 per cent in April 2005 to 58 per cent in October.
Protestants saw a 4 per cent drop over the same period to 65 per cent, among Catholics it fell from 55 per cent to 51 per cent.
The vast majority of people (72 per cent) felt the overall standard of policing in their area had remained the same while only 8 per cent felt it had improved.
Three quarters of those taking part felt the Policing Board was performing adequately, with 34 per cent of these people rating it as working well or very well.
Over three fifths (63 per cent) believed the board helped ensure the police did a good job.
PA