Photo: Wikimedia Commons The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) has opened a recruitment campaign this week which bids to increase its number of Catholic officers.
The PSNI is looking for 600 trainees to reach full complement and address the under-representation of Catholics in the force.
At present only 32% of the 6,848 police officers in Northern Ireland are Catholic, according to PSNI figures.
Archbishop of Armagh Rev. Eamon Martin, who first addressed the issue in a December interview on 50:50 recruitment with The Irish Catholic, said he was concerned by declining Catholic officer numbers.
“If we do not have a police service which is representative of the society it polices, you begin to run into accusations that the police service is not friendly to Catholic people,” said Dr Martin.
“That’s why I think this is a matter of concern for all of us and I think with a united effort of all of us to try to really lift the recruitment of young Catholics into the police, we could make a big effort to try and increase that percentage well up.”
Applications are open from February 4–25, with the first part of the process handled by professional services firm Deloitte.