District policing partnerships work alongside police officers

Denis Bradley met Security Minister Jane Kennedy on Monday to discuss the threats, which Chief Constable Hugh Orde has blamed on mainstream republicans, as well as dissidents.

Mr Bradley said after the meeting he was hopeful that tougher security measures would be put in place.

"We need to continue to look at these things - we need to give people reassurances as much as we can," he said.

"I think you will find over the next couple of weeks that the response times and the efforts being made will actually improve."

The chief constable earlier called on Sinn Fein to condemn such intimidation, following the latest attack on a nationalist DPP member.

Mr Orde said the police were doing all they could to protect DPP members.

He added that dissident republicans would not succeed in wrecking Northern Ireland's district policing partnerships through a campaign of death threats.

Resigned

Cathal O'Dolan, a district policing partnership member in Fermanagh resigned on Thursday after being warned his life was in danger.

On Sunday, a hoax bomb was planted at the home of the Strabane DPP chairman in County Tyrone, Thomas McBride.

However, the chief constable said the work of the district partnerships would go on.

"These people (DPP members) are brave people, they have made brave decisions and they are not going to be intimidated out of this," he said.

The threat against representatives on the 26 boards, which hold local police commanders to account, intensified after it emerged that police believe the Provisional IRA were planning to intimidate all nationalist representatives in Cookstown, County Tyrone.

However, Mr Orde said the main threat was posed by dissidents.

Even though Sinn Fein has boycotted the bodies because it believes policing reforms have not yet gone far enough, Sinn Fein's Martin McGuinness rejected the allegations.

But Mr Orde called for all sides to voice total opposition to the targeting.

He said: "Anyone that wants to engage in a democratic process should condemn it.