50:50 PSNI recruitment ends
A former Patten Commissioner tells UTV the time was right to end the temporary 50/50 police recruitment provision, which was introduced 10 years ago in a bid to increase the number of Catholic officers in the PSNI.
The controversial recruitment policy was introduced after the 1999 Patten Report into police reform in Northern Ireland recommended that an equal number of Protestants and Catholics had to be accepted as new recruits into the service.
Last week, Secretary of State Owen Patterson announced the process would be scrapped because nearly 30% officers now come from a Catholic background.
“I think it’s done the job it intended to do”, Maurice Hayes told UTV Live Tonight on the day the provision officially ended.
“You don’t want to keep these artificial frameworks in for longer than they need to be. It is a deliberate distortion of the normal method of recruitment.
Mr Hayes says the policy had an “important public purpose”, which “has been met.”
“You can let things take their course”.
Last week, Mr Paterson explained: “Some ten years after the introduction of the provisions, a significant proportion of serving officers – currently 29.76% – are now from a Catholic community background,” he said.
“It represents a tremendous change since the time of the Patten report when only 8.3% of Royal Ulster Constabulary officers were from a Catholic community background.”
As a result of progress in a number of areas – including the completion of devolution and Northern Ireland’s continued political progress – Mr Paterson said “the use of these special measures can no longer be justified.”
The move has been criticised by Sinn Féin and the SDLP but was welcomed by unionist politicians.
50:50 recruitment ends
‘Significant progress’ – Rowan
