It is time that Sinn Féin ended its refusal to take its place on the new policing board, writes Jim Dougal
There is a crucial period ahead for political movement in Northern Ireland. Agreement on the operation of law and order, policing and justice is essential to the restoration of a devolved power-sharing Assembly at Stormont.
Today, the North's minister for security David Hanson is due to publish proposals on how justice and policing could become the responsibility of local ministers in a renewed devolved governmental dispensation. At the weekend, the Sinn Féin Ardfheis will also examine this issue.
On April 1st, a new Northern Ireland Policing Board will take office.
The board, which will comprise 10 members nominated by the North's political parties and nine independents, is presently being assembled.
Two of the seats on the board are available to members of Sinn Féin. Will they take them or will they simply refuse again?
Will they agree to the positions but not attend meetings to ensure that the seats are not redistributed to other parties or to people deemed to be representative of the nationalist or republican community?
Surely the time for abstentionism has passed?
Unfortunately, the DUP members have said that they will withdraw if Sinn Féin begins to attend the board.
However, for politicians to abandon public bodies in Northern Ireland, to which they are committed, means that later on they have to find a reason, an excuse or a device to allow them to return.
While the future relationship between the policing board and any new justice and policing ministry or department needs to be explained and examined, prospects for the establishment of an Executive before the end of this year are remote.
Both the DUP and Sinn Féin will have to move a considerable distance.
The DUP has, to its credit, published proposals for low-level structures, which could progress towards full-blown devolution when trust has been built.
This is not acceptable to nationalists and republicans, who remember that Northern Secretary Jim Prior's "rolling devolution" plan of 1982 ended in tears in 1986. But it has to be accepted as movement on the part of the DUP.
The governments are examining the kinds of developmental structures which would be acceptable and there is some pressure on nationalists to return to an Assembly with the prospect of full devolution at a later stage.
After the Belfast Agreement, an Assembly was formed in shadow form. This could be revisited. There should, however, be no doubt that the one ingredient lacking in Northern Ireland is trust.
The report of the International Monitoring Commission may have thrown a spanner in the works, with its contention that the IRA is engaged in criminal activity and political intelligence-gathering and has kept some weapons. It will take at least two more IMC reports giving the IRA a clean bill of health before unionists will enter serious negotiations with Sinn Féin.
So, in the shorter term, republicans have a choice to make.
As a party, Sinn Féin makes much of its mandate and the representation of its people. Holding the police to account is part of that.
Joining the policing board now does not mean that the party must end its demands for further change.
But 25 per cent of voters - those who made Sinn Féin the second-biggest party in Northern Ireland - are not represented in an organisation whose job is to hold the PSNI to account and ensure an effective, efficient and impartial police service.
Members of Sinn Féin could join the body without denying their principles.
Therefore, their refusal must be tactical and a matter of timing. But they should take their seats and devise ways of building trust with other parts of the community.
While restorative justice schemes may have some legitimate local role, as long as they are not linked to paramilitaries, there must be some oversight of them. They are not a substitute for joined-up policing.
By joining the district policing partnerships, representing local communities in the 26 Northern Ireland council areas, the board would give republicans an input to day-to-day policing and enable younger republicans to join the service. In this they have nothing to lose and everything to gain.
Northern Ireland must have a police service based in the community which is conscious of the needs of the community.
The board has so far done a good job in exercising its responsibilities. Its establishment was an outworking of the Belfast Agreement, which is cherished by Sinn Féin. Only by working the available institutions can trust ultimately be achieved.
This involves bringing your community with you. In Northern Ireland, it demands proving that terrorism and paramilitaries are things of the past.
Sinn Féin has moved some distance in this direction.
On the loyalist side, why does it require the husband of the Irish head of state to talk to the Ulster Defence Association about scrapping its paramilitary and criminal activities?
That Martin McAleese can stroll into a public place in Belfast to meet representatives of an organisation feared by nationalists, and many in the Protestant community, demonstrates how far we have come in Northern Ireland in the search for some accommodation between the traditions on this island.
But how many unionist politicians and Protestant clergymen are involved in intensive negotiations to end the activities of loyalist paramilitaries as well?
Jim Dougal is a political journalist and broadcaster, former Northern editor of RTÉ and former Northern Ireland political editor of the BBC