A Downing Street spokesman refused to comment last night on a report in today's Daily Telegraph that the former Governor of Hong Kong, Mr Chris Patten, would chair the proposed commission on policing in Northern Ireland.
Mr Patten, a Catholic, is a former chairman of the Conservative Party and former junior minister at the Northern Ireland Office.
The Sinn Fein president, Mr Gerry Adams, emerged from yesterday's 90-minute meeting at Downing Street with the British Prime Minister and the Northern Ireland Secretary declaring the party's intention to "keep moving forward" in the search for permanent peace in Northern Ireland.
Both Sinn Fein and Downing Street described the meeting as "constructive", with Mr Adams stressing that he was there to get things done and, crucially, to engage Mr Tony Blair on the party's main areas of concern with regard to the equality agenda, demilitarisation and disbanding the RUC.
Mr Blair is expected to visit Northern Ireland twice ahead of the May 22nd referendum. The first visit may take place next week or the week after. However, the Northern Ireland Office has dismissed suggestions that members of the British royal family would take part in the Yes campaign.
At their meeting, Mr Adams insisted that demilitarisation was a key issue in the attempt to secure a permanent peace, while Mr Blair was keen to point out that the Northern Ireland Agreement was the best opportunity in decades for a peaceful future.
Although Sinn Fein wanted all the guns taken out of Irish politics, Mr Adams said he did not expect the British army to demilitarise "tomorrow morning" or for loyalist groups and the IRA to do the same.
Insisting that decommissioning was raised as an attempt to block progress, he said everyone had a responsibility to "get a proper peace settlement . . . let nothing be an obstacle, let us all move forward to try to bring about a process of demilitarisation."
Sinn Fein delegates will vote on the Belfast Agreement in Dublin on May 10th when the leadership will put forward "positive proposals" to build on the "positive elements" of the peace deal.
Mr Adams also insisted that it was for the ardfheis to decide if Sinn Fein members would stand for election to a new assembly.
However, while the leadership's proposal had not been formulated or agreed upon as yet, Mr Adams said the agreement was clearly "a basis for advancement" and the next phase was to persuade the British government to "encourage and facilitate" Irish unity.
Mr Adams said: "The triple lock, as it has been called in the past, has been reduced to one hinge. The British government are clearly, in their legislative re marks, committed to legislating for Irish unity if a majority of people in the North decide that is what they want.
"From a democratic point of view, we think that is unfair, we think it gives a veto . . . the next logical step in all of that is for the British government to be encouraging, to be facilitating, to be moving the whole situation in that direction."
Asked if he agreed with Sunday's comment by the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, that the British government was "out of the equation" in Northern Ireland, Mr Adams said that the Union had been weakened by the agreement and that Sinn Fein expected the government to promote further change.
In terms of the equality agenda, Mr Adams stressed that the British government had a responsibility to address injustices and "right these wrongs".
The RUC should be disbanded and the promotion of the Irish language must be addressed, but while unionists would see his comments as provocative, those who resisted change needed to "get real," Mr Adams said. "There needs to be fundamental change right across the entire situation . . . the best type of change is managed change."