An SDLP councillor, Mr Declan O'Loan, has said nationalists must consider whether the RUC name should be retained in some form in the new Police Service of Northern Ireland in the interests of wider consensus.
The SDLP leadership last night denied that this marked a break in the party's view that the Patten proposals on policing must be fully implemented. "This view is not in any way representative of party policy or party thinking," said an SDLP spokesman.
Mr O'Loan, a member of Ballymena Council who came to some prominence representing Catholic parishioners' views during the loyalist pickets of the Catholic church at Harryville, warned the Belfast Agreement could be on the point of collapse.
Mr O'Loan is the husband of the Police Ombudsman, Mrs Nuala O'Loan. He said the Ombudsman did not influence his statement.
"The reason for the potential collapse of the agreement is the widespread disillusionment with it among the unionist community. It is futile to think that this is only a characteristic of a vociferous minority," he said.
"This disillusionment puts particular responsibility on the nationalist community and its political representatives. They must take on the task of showing that the agreement can deliver on behalf of the unionist people.
"The major problem is the name of the police service, and nationalists need to attend to why this genuinely is a significant issue for unionist people. The removal of the RUC name appears to say that it was essentially the RUC that was responsible for our policing problems in the past, and for the poor relationship between the police and the nationalist community," he said. "It will be better if the nationalist community can recognise that the truth was much more complex, and that no group can escape its responsibilities for past failures here."
The SDLP spokesman said that despite Mr O'Loan's views the party remained insistent that Patten must be fully enacted. Meanwhile, the RUC representative body said thousands of serving and former RUC officers are considering taking compensation claims for post-traumatic stress disorder. The Police Federation has written to 13,000 serving and 4,000 retired RUC officers inviting any with psychiatric-type illnesses relating to the Troubles to make claims.
