Dan Keenan assesses feeling in the republican grassroots on the crucial issue of support for the PSNI as Sinn Féin gears up for a special ardfheis
"It would be a massive step. It's even bigger than going into Stormont. Policing is what it's all about." So said a former senior IRA man to this newspaper in the immediate aftermath of the IRA statement last year that it was formally ending its campaign.
For republicans - whether in the IRA, or in Sinn Féin, or living anonymously in local communities across Northern Ireland - any move on policing represents the biggest leap of faith so far.
It eclipses the decommissioning of IRA weapons and the decision by Sinn Féin MLAs to cross the Stormont threshold.
Attitudes are changing, not just among republicans, but throughout the wider community.
A careers fair at St Columb's College in Derry was attended for the first time by the PSNI and its stall was well attended.
The republican-inclined Andersonstown News published an extensive vox pop it carried out in west Belfast, which revealed a desire among most of the community there to "back the cops".
Francis Brolly, a Co Derry Assembly member, likens the decision in the following terms: "Going into Stormont directly affects 24 MLAs. Acceptance of the PSNI directly involves everyone living in this community. That's the scale of it."
It is an attitude reflected by republicans from south Armagh to republican west Belfast to rural Co Derry where there have been rumblings against the Sinn Féin leadership amid ongoing dissident activity.
"It is as much a cultural issue as a political one," he says, pointing to the long history of the former RUC and its role, as he sees it, as the enforcer or defender of the unionist state.
"That will take time to get over. Many young people in places like Dungiven may well look over their shoulders before making any decision to join the PSNI. They would want someone else to make the first move."
He cites the history of the Garda following partition and the fact that republicans then took some years before accepting the force as the legitimate policing service.
Republicans have been pressed to back the new policing dispensation since the PSNI was formed out of the RUC in November 2001 following the roll-out of the Patten Commission reforms.
Many republicans contacted by The Irish Times accept that things have changed and willingly admit the value of the oversight role provided by Nuala O'Loan and her Ombudsman's office.
Lawrence McKeown, a former IRA prisoner who is research co-ordinator for the ex-IRA prisoners' body Coiste na n-Iarchimí, highlights the cultural gulf between the wider republican community and the Northern Ireland police in all its guises.
"People don't have fathers, grandfathers or anyone in the police. Anything they got to know about the RUC was at the end of a baton. You're talking of generations who hadn't that experience [ of normal policing]."
The problem was that the same republican community also badly missed what he calls "proper policing".
"They're crying out for a police service. It's not that my community is anti-police. What they want is a police service that is transparent and accountable - not one like before, which was based on intelligence, MI5, Special Branch and all the rest of it." He insists the question of acceptability is not a Catholic/Protestant one.
"It's about someone could be in a police service while being openly a republican. And because there's been no massive change of people on the ground I think it is still difficult for people to shift the mindset from the RUC to PSNI. That will take time."
Republicans at street level in west Belfast are no strangers to dealing with the PSNI at sectarian interfaces as last summer's peaceful marching season illustrates.
"Republicans are up for this," he believes.
"Once you go down that road of saying the armed struggle is over, accepting the Good Friday agreement and its massive compromises, then policing is another issue which is crucial." "It's a challenge to go in and change [ policing] and create the service that we want, particularly in Belfast."
Mick Murphy, a councillor in Newry and Mourne which includes south Armagh, strongly believes that republicans along the Border will opt for the new policing arrangements when they are convinced the PSNI "are no longer a military police service but a police service for the community".
"When they are convinced that they are getting that, republicans will go in behind it." Local opinion towards the police continues to be hampered by the association with the former RUC and what he calls its "attachment to a military strategy".
But recognising the republican leadership's significant moves, not least on IRA weapons, Mr Murphy believes most republicans will listen to Sinn Féin appeals to back the PSNI if the terms are right.
"If the time comes that our leadership gives us the go-ahead to accept the police service that they say is accountable, I can't see republicans having any difficulty with it. We do need a police service very badly, we're crying out for it."
"All I require as a republican is a proper police service that's accountable to the communities it serves."
Former IRA members dismiss criticisms by Tánaiste Michael McDowell and SDLP leader Mark Durkan, who have pointed to what they see as an inconsistency in republicans' acceptance of ministerial positions at Stormont and their withholding of backing for the police.
"I, and others like me, can live that contradiction," says one former IRA man. "I don't care about McDowell and Durkan - when there has been real change, then we will join." However, there remain discordant voices.
Former Ardoyne IRA member David Delaney told the BBC at the weekend that Sinn Féin is moving too quickly on policing and may leave too many in its wake.
"There are families I know and close friends who were involved in the struggle who had loved ones killed because of collusion. And they are asking - how can we support this police service without knowing that the police officers which supplied the information are still there?"
With a new MI5 office block under construction at the former Palace Barracks in Holywood, Co Down, that could prove a tough one for Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness.
Mr Adams, who addressed a republican meeting in Belfast on the eve of the St Andrews talks, told his audience, which included many senior members of the movement, of the need for change. "Sinn Féin's focus on policing is about depoliticising the police force and changing it from an armed wing of the state to a service for the people," he said to reverential rather than enthusiastic applause.
His and Mr McGuinness's appeal to delegates at a special ardfheis on the question should tell us much.