THE Presbyterian Church in Ireland has called for an end to the
temporary 50:50 rule currently applied to recruitment within the Police
Service of Northern Ireland.
The call from the Presbyterian church
and society committee is contained in a response made on behalf of the
Church to the consultation by the Northern Ireland Office on the Review
of Temporary Recruitment Provisions which closed last week.
In
its eight-paragraph response, the Church cites as reasons for its view
that: - the percentage of Roman Catholics now in the policing service,
29.38 per cent, has reached the Patton recommendation of between 29 per
cent and 33 per cent; the provisions used to operate the recruitment
rule are temporary and there has been enough time for the temporary
legislation to give freedom to Roman Catholics to join the service.
The
Presbyterian response points out that when the Patten recommendations
were originally adopted in 2001 it was always a challenge inside Irish
Presbyterianism to accept the 50:50 recruitment process.
Over
the years it has remained a matter of concern that many Presbyterians
who would have liked to become members of the PSNI were excluded on the
basis of their faith tradition. This has caused heartache and
disenchantment.
However, as the consultation response points out,
Presbyterians are aware there is a bigger issue of the development of a
genuinely shared society in which everyone takes their responsibilities
seriously.
“That includes responsibility for dealing with crime which
is a matter for everyone in society, every community and every locality
and for this to be a reality then the PSNI would have to better reflect
the diversity within society,” says the Presbyterian response.
To
achieve this bigger goal of a shared society gathering around a
mutually respected and accepted policing service Patten set the target
at between 29 per cent and 33 per cent.
The Northern Ireland
Office consultation document indicates that as of October 2010
representation of the Roman Catholic community stands at 29.38 per cent.
“This,” says the Presbyterian response, “would suggest to us that a
continuation of the temporary arrangements is not essential to achieving
any bigger goal but has made its contribution.”
The Presbyterian response also sees the ending of the temporary provision as a further sign of the normalising of society.
“What
this [the ending of the temporary provision] would effectively do is to
allow a society to grow up which gives people the opportunity to be
where they are best suited on the basis of who they are and the gifts
they have as opposed to the tradition from which they come.”
However, there is also recognition that such normalising is dependent on changed hearts and minds.
“The
dissident groups, for example, and our conversations with some who
represent the nationalist and republican communities would suggest that
such changes of heart, mind and action have not yet occurred. This is
true for both sides of the community - there remain those who would like
return to the old style of policing and whose hearts are not in the
changes and there are those who are not yet prepared to sign up to the
new arrangements despite the proven track record that has been developed
over the last 10 years.”
The Presbyterian Church is clear in its
response to this. “Society cannot wait for ever for those who do not
want to change,” it says.
Concluding its response, the
Presbyterian Church emphasises its conviction that “no one should be
excluded from the policing service because of their cultural background
or faith tradition.”
It calls on the Policing Board to “keep
careful watch so that the PSNI does not fall back into a position from
which it is not trusted by the broad spectrum of Northern Ireland
society and in which it is not representative of society.”
The full Presbyterian response can be read online at www.presbyterianireland.org.