The head of the group representing rank-and-file PSNI officers has reacted with "disbelief" to the British government's conditional commitment to allow former IRA members have a role in local policing.
Mr Irwin Montgomery, chairman of the Police Federation of Northern Ireland, was highly critical of Northern Secretary Mr Paul Murphy's decision to permit former paramilitaries to join District Policing Partnerships (DPPs) if the IRA ends paramilitary activity.
Mr Montgomery, speaking in Cardiff yesterday, said his federation welcomed the concept of a partnership between the police service and the community at grassroots level.
"However, we note with disbelief the evident determination of the government to compromise the integrity of the concept by appointing independent members of the DPPs who have a terrorist background," he added.
"Public confidence in the police needs to be boosted - not undermined. I suggest to government that an independent appointee who has a terrorist background is by definition far from independent," said Mr Montgomery, whose organisation represents about 10,000 police officers.
"Appointing such people devalues the meaning of the word. More importantly such appointees will deter ordinary decent people, who know what their communities' law and order priorities are, from coming forward," he added.
The DUP leader, the Rev Ian Paisley, who led a party delegation in talks with Mr Murphy yesterday repeated he would not tolerate ex-paramilitaries on the DPPs.
His party colleague, Mr Peter Robinson, said the offer in draft policing legislation to republicans that former paramilitary prisoners could serve on local policing boards was "disastrous".
He claimed it was part of a wider package of concessions on offer to Sinn Féin and the IRA. He argued it could not help policing to have "criminals" in its decision-making bodies.
The east Belfast MP said Ulster Unionists had threatened at their last meeting of their ruling council to come off all policing boards, which would mean there would be no unionists on the policing board.
Mr Robinson said he had asked the Northern Ireland Secretary at yesterday's meeting whether he would still proceed "with the IRA agenda" in the event of that happening. "He indicated that that is something that he would have to consider very seriously."
The Sinn Féin spokesman on policing, Mr Gerry Kelly, said the proposed amendments to the policing legislation did not go far enough.
While he welcomed the proposals on allowing former paramilitaries on DPPs, Sinn Féin still had serious concerns over the Special Branch, the police oath and the calling of retrospective inquiries into incidents in the past.
The Alliance policing spokesman, Dr Stephen Farry, said there was a need for a common sense approach to policing.
"Policing structures should be based upon an objective analysis of the needs of the community rather than the appeasement of a political agenda," he added. "Priorities for the government should be to increase police numbers in the short term through attracting secondments and civilianisation of certain functions and, in the medium term, building new police training facilities that can process trainees in greater numbers.
"In addition the unnecessary straitjacket that is the 50:50 \ recruitment quota should be replaced with affirmative action targets," he said.
