PSNI still struggling to recruit Catholics, 25 years on

Liam Kelly was a member of 'the 8 per cent club'.

One of a small proportion of Catholic officers in the RUC, a police force distrusted and disliked by many nationalists in Northern Ireland throughout the Troubles.

At its height, 8% of those in its ranks were from a Catholic background.

He joined in September 1994, a month after the Provisional IRA had declared a ceasefire. That ended in February 1996, with the bombing of Canary Wharf in London, and was restored in July the following year.

"I always had this vocation that I wanted to help people, and for me, at that time, policing was the practical option for me to do that," he says.

"I had the full support of my family, and it's important to say that you need the support of your family, and the backing of your peers and friends. I had that backing."

He felt more at threat because of his Catholic background as the IRA was keen to prevent people from his community supporting or joining a police force they characterised as the enemy.

'Legitimate targets'

During the period 1969 to 1998, 302 RUC officers were murdered. The vast majority of them, 277, were killed by the IRA, who designated them "legitimate targets". Thousands of others were injured, many of them seriously.

Those casualty figures fuelled a sense of betrayal and anger among many unionists when the RUC was disbanded and replaced by the PSNI in November 2001, as part of sweeping reforms recommended by an independent commission established by the Good Friday Agreement.

The aim was to encourage more Catholics to join.

While unionists and Protestants, who made up 92% of the RUC’s ranks, were angered at its disbandment, Sinn Féin initially did not support the PSNI, despite a 50:50 recruitment rule, which stipulated that half of all new recruits had to be Catholic.

But republicans eventually backed the new service, and Sinn Féin members took up seats on the Northern Ireland Policing Board, which holds the PSNI to account.

The 50:50 rule, which ended in 2011, also bore fruit. A quarter of a century after its formation, 31% of those in the ranks of the PSNI are designated as Catholic.

But the proportion of Catholic officers has largely plateaued for the past 15 years, rather than increasing, as the architects of the reform had intended.

The 2021 Census found that Catholics made up 45.7% of the population of Northern Ireland at that stage.

Sinn Féin and the SDLP have called for a restoration of the 50:50 rule, a move strongly opposed by unionists.

Many police officers and advocates of the PSNI point fingers of blame towards nationalist and Catholic political parties, namely Sinn Féin, and community organisations, accusing them of being equivocal in their support.

'We need the police to be supported'

Liam Kelly is one of those who believes those parties and groups could, and should, be doing more, including the Catholic Church.

Now an Inspector and chair of the Police Federation for Northern Ireland, which represents rank and file PSNI officers, he says it is clear that many from within the Catholic community still feel intimidated and inhibited from pursuing a career in policing.

To do so often means they have to move home and drastically change their social life, leaving GAA clubs and friends behind, because the threat from dissident republicans remains.

"We’ve heard stories about that throughout this week of events to mark the 25th anniversary of the PSNI," he says.

"We’ve heard from people who are not able to live within the communities that they come from, not being able to police the communities they come from, and ultimately that their social circles, and even their family circles, are constrained by the fact that they have chosen to do a noble vocation. I think we need to get beyond that as a society.

"We need the police to be supported, not just in words but by actions, because if we want our police to be fully representative of our communities we need our community leaders, our church leaders, our political leaders, to come together and actually say that policing is a noble profession and you have our support and backing to do this."

Micheál Martin echoed those sentiments when he became the first Taoiseach to attend a passing out parade for new PSNI officers in east Belfast on Thursday.

He told the 36 new recruits he was delighted and honoured to have been invited, and that policing is the glue that binds society together.

Speaking to the media afterwards, he said everyone in a position of leadership had a responsibility to "unequivocally" support the PSNI.

Mr Martin said the Irish Government was open to working with the British government to find ways to improve the recruitment and retention of Catholic officers.

"The political parties, community groups, the church, should be unequivocal and should be loud in their encouragement and in urging people to consider a career in policing," he said.

"I find it very difficult to comprehend why certain elements of the nationalist community wouldn't be absolutely working flat out to ensure the success of Patten (the independent commission on policing), which is a more varied PSNI that would be more reflective of the entire community.

"It makes no sense to me as we had such huge advocacy at the time for transformation, for change. Patten laid out the template, the logical follow through should be to follow through on Patten's recommendations and make it happen."

Independent review of PSNI culture and recruitment

The Catholic Police Guild, which represents Catholic officers in the PSNI, last year called for an independent review into the organisation’s culture and recruitment, describing the number of Catholic applications as disappointing.

The Taoiseach revealed that when he met members of the Guild three years ago, they told him they were very concerned that the support from nationalist parties and organisations was not public enough.

The PSNI Chief Constable has often been outspoken in his criticism of politicians for failing to support the police to the extent that he would like.

Jon Boutcher told a meeting of the Policing Board last week that the architect of the policing reforms, former Conservative MP Chris Patten, would be angry if he scrutinised the way his commission’s recommendations have been handled.

He told the meeting that the fact that society as a whole had not "collectively and actively" encouraged people to apply to join the PSNI was "the single biggest barrier" to it becoming truly representative of the society it serves.

Duncan Morrow and Jonny Bryne, authors of a book just published on the history of the PSNI, 'Twenty-Five Years of Policing in Northern Ireland', conclude with a medical metaphor about what they describe as the single most radical overhaul of policing in the history of British policing.

"In 2001, policing in Northern Ireland underwent major, and astonishingly successful, organ transplant surgery," they say.

"The compatibility of the organ with the old body was challenging from the beginning but intensive focus by experts and international supporters gave the process a reasonable chance.

"But success ultimately depends on the compatibility of patient and organ, acute and intensive medical care and a reformed lifestyle on the part of the recipient."

In the deeply sectarian society that remains in Northern Ireland, an important question for many in such a hypothetical scenario would still be: was the patient Catholic or a Protestant?

A quarter of a century since its birth, the patient remains under close vigilance and in need of boosters if it is to thrive in the way its creators intended.