Policing and justice powers should be transferred to a single devolved government department in Northern Ireland, Stormont Assembly members recommended today.
In the second report of the Preparation for Government Committee, it emerged that unionist and nationalist Assembly members agreed there should be a single Policing and Justice Department rather than two separate departments.
MLAs failed to agree whether the department should be run by two ministers of equal standing or by a senior and junior minister, however.
They also failed to reach unanimity on a proposal that all parties serving in a future power-sharing executive must publicly endorse and urge their supporters to back the police.
The committee - which featured members of the Rev Ian Paisley's Democratic Unionists, Sinn Féin, the Ulster Unionists, the SDLP and Alliance Party - also failed to reach agreement on the timing of the transfer of policing and justice powers from Westminster to a power-sharing government.
Although there was agreement on some of the transferred powers, they failed to reach agreement on the role of the Assembly in the appointment of a future Police Ombudsman and how community restorative justice schemes should operate in the province.
But the Assembly members did back a resolution condemning and calling for an end to the exiling of individuals from communities in Northern Ireland.