Sinn Fein has been assured by the Government that it stands "full square" behind the full implementation of the Patten proposals on police reform in Northern Ireland, Mr Gerry Kelly, Sinn Fein member of the Northern Assembly said yesterday.
Asked if he was confident of the assurances his party received during what he said were "very close contacts" over recent weeks, Mr Kelly said he had to be confident because "that is what I am being told by the Irish Government".
Mr Kelly and Mr Gerry McHugh, also a member of the Northern Assembly, were in Dublin for meetings in Leinster House yesterday afternoon.
A Sinn Fein delegation, led by Mr Caoimhghin O Caolain TD, met senators and TDs to discuss "the outstanding issues" between the Patten proposals and the British government's Policing Bill which is going through the House of Lords.
Mr Kelly said the Patten proposals had been the compromise between the unionist position and the nationalist position. There had been a lot of emphasis recently, he said, on flags and emblems, the symbolic things, which were very important.
However, he said, there a substantial amount of the debate was not to do with unionists but with the British government and "the securocrats within it who are trying to hollow out and take away the innards of the Patten recommendations".
Asked about a second arms inspection being carried out, Mr Kelly said confidence-building measures did not affect a new policing service in the North. The IRA had always kept their word and he was confident they would do so in the future.
Asked if Sinn Fein would recommend joining the police force to the nationalist community if the Patten recommendations were implemented in full, Mr Kelly said Sinn Fein would look at the end product. "Peter Mandelson is saying that what he is producing is Patten, what I am saying is that what he is producing is not Patten."