Joint Garda and RUC training is to take place for the first time in either force's history with about 50 officers from each jurisdiction taking part together in an FBI-sponsored programme in the United States later this month.
Structures for further joint training, at first in community-related policing, is then to begin later this year. Groups of officers will cross the Border in both directions to study each other's techniques for policing.
Planning for the joint training programme is understood to be well advanced and sites in the Republic and Northern Ireland for the joint programmes have been identified. They are not being disclosed for security reasons.
It is likely, however, that RUC officers will visit the Garda College in Co Tipperary and gardai will visit the RUC training facilities at Garnerville, in east Belfast and on the University of Ulster campus.
The programmes will be directed by officers of assistant commissioner level in the Garda and at assistant chief constable level in the RUC.
It is expected the former academic co-ordinator of the Garda College, at Templemore, Co Tipperary, Mr Eamon Keating, will take up the role of co-ordinating the Republic's side of the joint programme when it comes into operation later this year. The joint training is to start with the induction of 50 gardai and 50 RUC officers, mostly of inspector and superintendent ranks, into a month-long course at the FBI Academy, at Quantico, Virginia, starting on January 23rd.
It is understood the provision of the facility at Quantico and the joint training programme there came as a result of a suggestion by US government officials last year at about the time the Commission of Inquiry into the RUC under the chairmanship of Mr Chris Patten was set up.
The Patten Commission is expected to recommend major changes to the RUC later this year, including its effective disbandment with the establishment of a new force to be known as the Northern Ireland Police Service.
The joint training envisaged under the new programme will involve RUC and Garda officers discussing policing in more normal conditions. It is expected the RUC, in particular, will benefit from the Garda's experiences in community-oriented policing. Gardai will also benefit from much of the UK-based training and experiences that are utilised by the RUC.
It is understood the initial joint training will concentrate entirely on community policing and that programmes will remain separate from the high-level security information exchanges between the senior managements of both forces.