Sinn Féin should take its place on Northern Ireland's policing board to encourage young republicans to join the police force, Ulster Unionist MP Lady Sylvia Hermon said today.
Lady Hermon, wife of former RUC Chief Constable Sir John Hermon, said that this would bring an end to the "discriminatory" recruitment process currently in place.
"We certainly have a difficulty with our manpower levels at the present time in Northern Ireland - they are in fact dangerously low and this is of course infringing on people's confidence in the Belfast Agreement," she told BBC Radio 4's programme The World at One.
Lady Hermon branded the current recruitment process as "negative and divisive". "We have in place a recruitment procedure that is based on the religion of the recruits," she said.
"That has had a very negative, a very divisive and a very counter-productive affect ... What I would like to see and what we should have seen in the first place was in fact Sinn Féin taking its place quite rightly on the policing board.
"It is my very firm belief that if Sinn Féin were on the policing board and were encouraging young republicans to come forward quite rightly and taking their places in the police service to serve the whole of the community, then we would not need any discriminatory recruitment procedure at all."
The departure of a number of Special Branch officers from the force had also contributed to create a "very serious problem indeed", she said.
Sinn Féin chairman Mr Mitchell McLaughlin said his party would take their place on the board if the Government addressed republican concerns about the Patten recommendations.
"We engage with the British Government, directly with Tony Blair, he has now accepted the need for amending legislation to the Police Act and hopefully that will be brought forward sooner rather than later," he said.
"And certainly in circumstances where our concerns are met by the British Government in relation to the Patten recommendations then we will take our place on the board."
Sinn Féin would not "prejudge" Northern Ireland's new chief constable, Mr Hugh Orde, and would remain "open-minded" about his performance, he said.
PA