Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams has said the controversial Patten report on the future of policing in Northern Ireland must be fully implemented.

Mr Adams was speaking ahead of talks on Tuesday about the costs of implementing the raft of radical reforms to policing which are outlined in the report.

The Northern Ireland Office has so far refused to comment on reports that the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) is to be renamed the Police Service of Northern Ireland.

A name change was one of the 175 major recommendations in the report which was compiled by former Hong Kong governor Chris Patten. Speaking in west Belfast, Mr Adams said republicans and nationalists would be looking closely to see if the implementation of the report was capable of delivering a police force which would command the support of their community.

"At the very least what has to happen is that the Patten report has to be implemented in full by the British Government and the British Government's implementation of that report has to be very visible within its legislation.

"Let's wait until we get the legislation in place and then make a judgement. What's for certain is that it's a touchstone issue."

He added: "We need a new policing service. The judgement will be whether what replaces the RUC can have young republicans actually joining this new policing service and having peer approval in so doing."

Secretary of State Peter Mandelson is expected to make a statement to MPs in the House of Commons on Wednesday on the government's plans for implementation of the Patten report.

Meanwhile, government officials held discussions with representatives of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) staff associations at Stormont House in Belfast on Tuesday afternoon.

Afterwards, a spokesman for the Police Federation which represents about 13,000 RUC officers, said the the first stage of the talks had been about voluntary severance arrangements.

'Nothing on the table'

"After that we went into discussions in respect of Patten's proposals. We simply made opening statements. There were no agreements arrived at, nothing was on the table and the discussions are continuing," said David McClurg.

"We look forward to continuing those discussions to a satisfactory conclusion on behalf of our members."

Mr McClurg said the discussions would not be carried out in public.

"That would be totally unfair on our members to do that in the full glare of media coverage."

He told the BBC there were no concrete redundancy packages on the table at this stage.

"We did not want to be in this position, I must stress that. We did not seek Patten or these proposals. We are not heartened by what we have heard or seen in the media but we are here and will do the job on our members' behalf," he said.

Representatives of the Superintendents and Chief Police Officers' Associations, also took part in the discussions.

The Patten report, which was published last September, also includes controversial proposals for changes to RUC insignia and uniform as well as cutting the number of RUC officers by around 6,000.

Unionists were outraged by many of Patten's recommendations but Sinn Fein said they did not go far enough and demanded the complete disbandment of the RUC.

It is believed Mr Mandelson backs most of Patten's proposals.

On a visit to Omagh on Monday, he said the government would be "generous and sympathetic" towards the force.