The DUP will embark on a consultation process with grassroots supporters after next month's Scottish talks on the political process to determine whether there is any general party support for sharing power with Sinn Féin, according to informed sources.
Sinn Féin also has been conducting a consultation process with its supporters throughout Ireland to establish whether ordinary members would contemplate endorsing the PSNI, the party has confirmed.
This is part of the build-up for the intensive talks in St Andrews in Scotland from October 11th-13th aimed at restoring devolution to Northern Ireland and chaired by Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and British prime minister Tony Blair.
A range of matters must be tackled at these talks but there is general consensus that the two key areas for agreement are whether the DUP would share power with Sinn Féin and whether Sinn Féin would sign up to policing.
The DUP has set out what it requires from republicans before it would consider entering a Northern Executive with Sinn Féin: IRA decommissioning, an end to the IRA as a paramilitary group, an end to criminal activity, and an endorsement of the police by Sinn Féin.
The Independent Monitoring Commission is expected to report positively on the first three elements of the DUP demands in the first week in October. In relation to policing it could form a trade-off issue at the Scottish talks with Sinn Féin in principle endorsing the PSNI, and the DUP in principle agreeing to share power with Sinn Féin.
What seems clear however is that while the British and Irish governments insist their November 24th deadline for a deal is immovable - the DUP and Sinn Féin would need time beyond that date to formally determine whether they could forge an agreement, that is if agreement is possible.
In the first instance Sinn Féin said it could only officially endorse the PSNI through a vote by a special ardfheis on policing. The DUP believes there could only be movement on power-sharing based on grassroots support for such a policy shift - which explains the DUP plan to begin the consultation process in mid to late October and the similar process on policing which Sinn Féin has been running for six months now.
At Stormont yesterday Sinn Féin's justice spokesman Gerry Kelly said there could be Sinn Féin movement on policing if the DUP would discuss when it would accept responsibility for justice and policing being devolved to a Northern department of justice.
Mr Kelly said: "We need to separate out the issue that needs to be sorted out in terms of getting policing right. We could be very, very close to it if the DUP would engage and stop being disruptive. We are in the business of trying to get to a situation where society has the right to protection."
Northern Secretary Peter Hain, who addressed the Assembly Programme for Government committee yesterday, effectively accepted that the Police Ombudsman's report into how the RUC handled its investigation into the 1997 UVF murder of Raymond McCord jnr would confirm there had been widespread collusion between RUC special branch officers and loyalist paramilitaries.
He said the report into the "appalling events" surrounding the murder was likely to make "extremely uncomfortable" reading for the British government and its political representatives in Northern Ireland, and was "a stain on Northern Ireland society". Mr Hain said, however, it was a case from the past dating back to the RUC and should not be used by Sinn Féin as an excuse not to support the PSNI.
Mr Hain also announced yesterday £135,000 of aid for a six-month project run by the Ulster Political Research Group, which is linked to the UDA, aimed at developing ways of steering loyalist communities away from paramilitarism and criminality.
