Senior officers in the gardaí are being targeted in a new recruitment drive by the PSNI.
The PSNI wants to recruit 40 experienced officers from forces in the Republic and Britain.
It is looking for experienced detectives and officers specialising in sexual crimes.
The recruitment drive follows the retirement of a large number of senior PSNI officers who took the redundancy package established by the Patten proposals for reforming the RUC.
The new posts will be paid for out of an extra £245m fund, which was given to the PSNI by the British Exchequer earlier this year.
An advertising campaign to recruit the new officers is to be launched next month.
