Chai Brady
Archbishop Eamon Martin A return to 50:50 recruitment of Catholics and Protestants into the Police Service of the Northern Ireland (PSNI) is needed to halt expected decline in Catholic officers, according to the Archbishop of Armagh Eamon Martin.
Following a meeting of Church leaders with Chief Constable Simon Byrne of the PSNI, the archbishop said that while he is pleased 32% of the PSNI are Catholic, he has “concerns” about the future balance of community representation. He is calling for Catholics to consider the “noble vocation” and for communities to encourage and support them.
The Patten Report paved the way for 50:50 recruitment to address the under-representation of Catholics, it was introduced in 2001 when the police were 92% Protestant.
Archbishop Martin told The Irish Catholic: “Because Patten’s target of moving towards a police service that is representative of the society that it polices, I feel that in recent years it has reached a bit of a plateau and I would be concerned about that.”
After a review in 2011 the policy was ended, with the number of Catholics at 30%.
Speaking about the current figures, Archbishop Martin said: “It’s almost 20% short of the percentage of young Catholics who are out there, if you think of that age group of young people in Northern Ireland, almost 50% of those young people are Catholic and I think it should be a matter of concern – not just for Catholic communities, but for the whole community, because if we do not have a police service which is representative of the society that it polices you begin to run into accusations that the police service is not friendly to Catholic people, or you allow a vacuum to be created which allows others to exploit intimidation and fear in communities.
United effort
“That’s why I think this is a matter of concern for all of us and it’s something that I think with a united effort across the community, we could make a big effort to try and increase that percentage well up.”
Dr Martin said Constable Byrne told Church leaders the number of Catholics in the PSNI was in decline and “it’s going to decline further”.
“I think that if Patten’s criteria were applied today I think there would be grounds for let’s say a further five years with a united support across the community, for the 50:50 to return to give it that push up beyond the threshold figure so that communities then would say this is a representative police service and we should encourage our young people to join up.”
With PSNI being about 700 officers short of a full complement, there will be a recruitment drive coming in January.
“I think now to have that visibility of policing as a legitimate noble career at our careers fairs and days in schools and also of course in our parish bulletins and to let people know that this is something that has the support of your church and hopefully then also other community leaders and political leaders will weigh in behind as well. I think that it’s a united effort of all of us to try to really lift the recruitment of young Catholics into the police,” Dr Martin added.