A meeting of the Northern Ireland Policing Board has heard that attitudes to policing in republican areas - where they normally faced hostility - are changing.

A senior police officer said last week that the PSNI are experiencing a 'wind of change' in with these new, more positive attitudes undermining efforts by dissident republicans to continue the conflict.

Speaking at the meeting, Assistant Chief Constable Peter Sheridan, said that while republican splinter groups have been behind five murder bids on police officers since Sinn Fein signed up to support the service last year, the positive response the PSNI have received in relation to their various inquiries – such the fatal shooting in a predominantly republican stronghold of 22-year-old Londonderry man Emmett Shiels - shot dead in the Creggan area of the city - was evidence of this new outlook.

"There is little or no community support (for the dissidents), you just have to look at the response in the community round the Emmett Shiels murder to see that," he said.

"There is a wind of change, a huge wind of change out there and I have seen that in a number of investigations."

He added: "There is a completely different response to police on the ground."

Mr Sheridan also played down reports that breakaway groups, the Continuity and Real IRA, were planning a joint campaign across Northern Ireland this summer.

The Assistant Chief Constable believes the two groups could not co-ordinate and in any case the PSNI would be doing their utmost to ensure it does not materialise.

(BMcC)