The newly formed Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) comes into being later this year to replace the discredited Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) as a community police service for both Protestants and Catholics in a divided society.

The North's Catholics have demanded the replacement of the RUC since The Troubles erupted in 1968.  The RUC -- whose officers are drawn mainly from the majority Protestant community -- was long viewed by the Catholic minority as a sectarian and partisan force whose main role was to suppress any demand for equal treatment in the Northern Ireland state.

Since the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in April, 1998, policing, along with the decommissioning of terrorist weapons, has been one of the main stumbling blocks to Northern Ireland becoming a normal society. The Patten report recommended a radical departure for policing in Northern Ireland with the creation, for the first time since Northern Ireland was founded in 1921, of a police service drawing equal support from both communities.

The apparatus of a repressive police force is to be replaced with a local, community-based police service with strict guidelines to ensure human rights are protected. The challenge for everyone in Northern Ireland is to ensure that policing is once and for all removed from the political arena and returned to the community where it should be.

Comparisons between the RUC and the Irish Republic's police force -- the Garda Siochana  (Gaelic for "Guardians of the Peace") -- show just how important the policing issue was in the development of politics in Ireland.

The Garda Siochana  was formed in the midst of a bitter civil war in Ireland to police the 26 counties that had achieved a limited form of independence from Britain in 1922.  The founders of the Garda Siochana  took a brave and  fateful decision in those dark and dangerous days when brother killed brother in the Civil War.

They decided that the new Irish police force should be an unarmed force and the Garda Siochana  remains to this day a largely unarmed force (something of a shock to American visitors when they see uniformed police officers without guns at their side).

The first Garda commissioner, Michael Staines, said the force should wield its moral authority from the people. And, since its foundation, the Garda Siochana has been a model of how a community police service should operate.

While in Northern Ireland, the newly formed RUC was equipped with armored cars, heavy machine guns, rifles and pistols, members of the Garda Siochana  patrolled their communities with only a wooden baton and the respect of the people they served.

The RUC swiftly won a reputation as a brutal and repressive force whose writ ran in Catholic communities only because of their superior firepower while the Garda Siochana  policed communities with a combination of political independence and moral authority.

When the Northern Ireland Troubles erupted in 1968, the RUC was at the forefront of the unionist attempt to crush the emerging demand from the North's nationalist community for equal treatment and civil rights.

In August, 1969, the British government faced with the impending collapse of the RUC from widespread civil disorder, sent in British troops to effectively take over policing. The result was almost 30 years of a guerrilla war involving the IRA, the British Army , RUC and loyalists.

Since 1968, the RUC changed almost out of recognition from the blunt instrument used to put down rebellious nationalists. The RUC today is without doubt one of the most experienced police forces in terms of dealing with civil disorder and terrorist crimes. It is also one of the best equipped and best trained.  But politically it is still mistrusted by the vast majority of Northern Ireland's Catholics and — while it remains — policing will always be a contentious issue.

Undoubtedly, the RUC has paid a heavy price in human terms for its role -- 302 of its officers were murdered and thousands injured during The Troubles. In comparison, the Garda Siochana suffered 13 members killed in the course of duty connected with the political and sectarian conflict.  The first was Garda  Richard Fallon shot during a bank raid by republican terrorists in Dublin in 1970 and the last was Detective Garda  Jerry McCabe, gunned down during a post office raid by the IRA in Co. Limerick in June, 1996.

The difference in public opinion in the Republic to the deaths of police officers from both forces illustrates the difference in perception between the RUC and the Garda Siochana.

While the murder of an RUC officer raised barely an eyebrow in the Republic during The Troubles, the murder of a Garda  caused huge public revulsion and backlash against the killers.

The Garda Siochana is viewed as belonging to the community and Garda officers are neighbors, friends and relatives of the community they serve. An attack on the Garda Siochana is seen as an attack on society itself and the murder of a Garda is a threat to the very cohesion of that society.

A bitter public outcry arose when it was suggested by Sinn Fein that the killers of Detective Garda McCabe  should be freed under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement as had happened in the North where hundreds of killers were set free.

Public opinion was against any move to free the McCabe killers, and while Sinn Fein may have been technically correct in its view, politicians in the Republic were unwilling to favor the killers of a Garda.

The Garda Siochana  is changing in a changing society, in ways that the new Police Service of Northern Ireland will have to consider.

The 11,000-strong force is still unarmed to a large extent.  Its uniformed officers carry no guns. Only specialist units such as the Special Branch and the Emergency Response Unit, routinely carry weapons.

The Garda Siochana is still viewed largely as a community-based service although as Ireland becomes a multi-racial and multi-cultural society new problems will undoubtedly arise.

The force has also maintained its reputation as independent of politics and impervious to political influence. While there have been some notable exceptions, the Garda Siochana has remained an incorruptible police force serving and protecting the community in a democratic society.

If the new PSNI achieves even a fraction of the reputation the Garda Siochana  has won, then the future of policing in Northern Ireland could be secure.