McAleese hails North policing transformation

President Mary McAleese today praised the transformation of policing which had allowed the North to take a giant step towards a completely new era in community policing.

Today cross-border policing and political relations had never been better or more comprehensive and that gave all who lived on the island a higher than ever level of reassurance about their safety and security, she said.

Mrs McAleese told a Belfast conference celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Police Rehabilitation and Retraining Trust that the high level of cross-community trust so much needed to police effectively was a credit to all those concerned in the transformation of the policing landscape.

The metamorphosis set in train by the Patten policing reforms in 1999 which led from the RUC to the PSNI was very difficult for a lot of people both inside and outside the police service, she said.

“Yet the leap of faith made by so many of you, at times with heavy hearts and uncertainty, allowed Northern Ireland to take a giant step towards a completely new era in community policing.

“The new Chief Constable of the PSNI, Matt Baggott I know intends to build on the legacy of his distinguished predecessor, Sir Hugh Orde, with a strong focus on community policing and I use this opportunity to wish him and the police service every success.”

She called for a final end to terrorist violence, condemning those still wedded to the old culture seen in the “sporadic episodes of shocking sectarian violence and in the cowardly murders of soldiers at Massereene and Constable Stephen Carroll in Craigavon.”

Mrs McAleese said Con Carroll had been a student of the Trust studying for a degree in Manchester. It was awarded posthumously to his widow Kate who made the lonely journey to England to collect it, she said.

“We want no more such journeys, no more such losses and we are all learning that the closer, the more collegially we work together the more we close down and suffocate the attitudes which keep alive the remnants of the tired old, redundant culture of mutual contempt and conflict,” said the President..

She added: “To get where we are has involved considerable sacrifice and suffering some if it still raw and sore. The Trust has been an important companion, helping people move beyond the physical and emotional pain to new hope.

That investment in people had been of enormous help not just to the clients of the service but to civic society in general and to the peace process, she added.

“More importantly still the men and women who have used this service have through their investment in reshaping their own lives, become powerful ambassadors for the hope and potential that is released by such a sea change.

“As we join in these tenth anniversary celebrations the mood and message should be one of gratitude to those who have tried to meet and to facilitate the challenge of change and who have made transformation tangible right across Northern Ireland and indeed this island.

“I wish you all the very best for the remainder of the conference and for the ’new futures’ being built by you as an organisation and by the people you serve so well.