Proposed reforms of the RUC by the Independent Commission on Policing should proceed even without the establishment of the Stormont executive, the commission chairman, Mr Chris Patten, has said. At a reception for the American Ireland Fund in New York yesterday, Mr Patten said that while security issues and political developments in Northern Ireland would play a role in how the proposals were received, much of the planned reform should continue.
"I think a huge amount of what we have recommended could happen regardless of either the security situation or what happens to the agreement, because a lot of it should happen anyway," Mr Patten said.
Issues such as police force structure, training and management should be pushed through, he said. On the force's composition, Mr Patten said the number of Catholic officers in the RUC ranks would have to reach about 15 per cent before it had an impact on the community.
Mr Patten, who was in the US in his capacity as European Commissioner for External Affairs, is due today to brief a US congressional hearing about the commission's policing report.
"In the Good Friday agreement the parties in Northern Ireland had been able to agree on a very great deal. The one thing they hadn't been able to agree on was policing, because policing was right at the heart of most of the really sensitive issues," he said.
What the parties had agreed on was a set of terms of reference, and the commission had met those terms absolutely, he said. While the Patten body had often found itself in the position of a truth and reconciliation committee in its 40 public meetings, the report would likely stand the test of time, he said.
Implementing the reforms would likely require an outside force to ensure that the report was not simply finalised and filed away, Mr Patten said.
"We proposed an oversight commission, somebody from outside the United Kingdom and the Republic who, with two or three colleagues, will have the job of coming to Northern Ireland three or four times a year and checking on progress."
The Presbyterian Church has said it is disappointed the Patten Report did not recognise more explicitly the sacrifices of RUC officers and their families over the past 30 years.
At a press conference in Belfast yesterday the church's Moderator, Dr John Lockington, said he had found it difficult to read the report dispassionately.
"I was thinking of all the RUC men and their families whom I know and how deeply this report will affect their lives. I would have welcomed a more appreciative approach to their suffering and it certainly would have enhanced the report's acceptability." The Orange Order is expected to raise objections to the report when its Grand Lodge meets in Belfast tomorrow. The order will object not only to the removal of the "Royal" from the RUC title but to the reduction in the size of the force from 13,000 to 10,000 full and part-time officers and to the "diminution in status" of the RUC Special Branch, which will be merged with the CID. Meanwhile a campaign opposing the Patten proposals, and featuring rallies across the North in support of the RUC, is to be launched by anti-agreement unionists next week.
"They defended us, we will defend them," said the DUP leader, the Rev Ian Paisley.