The Democratic Unionists will not be bought off into going into a devolved government simply on the back of gaining peerages and extra seats on the North’s Policing Board, a senior member warned today.

The British government was today urged to call Sinn Féin’s bluff on policing in Northern Ireland with legislation allowing the transfer of justice powers to a future administration at Stormont.

Northern Ireland needs to guard against becoming a gangster state, Ulster Unionist leader Sir Reg Empey warned tonight.

Young people must be shielded from the sectarian violence plaguing parts of the North, the children’s commissioner said tonight.

Four hoax devices addressed to members of the North’s Policing Board were intercepted at a postal sorting office in Co Antrim last night.

Northern Ireland’s Chief Constable Hugh Orde will today comment for the first time on claims that the IRA were behind the record £22m (€31.3m) bank robbery in Belfast before Christmas.

Six packages containing mass cards and a mystery white powder have been sent to the members of the SDLP and the headquarters of the North’s Policing Board.

FOREIGN Affairs Minister Brian Cowen last night launched an attack on dissident republicans who are waging a campaign of intimidation against nationalist members of the North’s Policing Board.

The chairman of the North’s Policing Board has called for an inquiry into the violence of the Troubles in an effort to lay the past to rest.

The Taoiseach has said he is confident that the British government will fulfil its outstanding obligations to implement the Patten Report on policing in full.

Nationalists and republicans are not being harassed or intimidated out of joining Northern Ireland’s new police service, Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams said today.

Ronnie Flanagan is poised to delay his departure as Northern Ireland Chief Constable by one month until the end of March, it emerged today.