Unionists renew call over police trainees quota

The UK government faced fresh unionist demands today to scrap a police recruitment quota in Northern Ireland which requires an equal number of Catholic and Protestant trainees.

Ulster Unionist MP Lady Sylvia Hermon told Northern Ireland Office Minister Jane Kennedy the 50:50 quota was discriminatory and had had a negative impact on Protestant attitudes to policing and equality.

In a letter to the minister on the proposed renewal of the quota, the North Down MP said her party believed it ran “completely counter to the provisions of the Belfast Agreement” on equality of opportunity, regardless of religious belief.

“Its perpetuation makes a complete mockery of statements by both the Irish and British

governments about their commitment to human rights, the quality agenda and the full implementation of the Agreement,” she argued.

“Every time a Protestant applicant to the Police Service of Northern Ireland is rejected on the basis of his or her ‘community background’, that individual and their family and their community simply do not believe the British government is truly committed to respect for human rights or to equality of opportunity or even to the Agreement.

“Consequently I strongly recommend the re-reading of the powerful speech delivered in Liverpool by the then Northern Ireland Secretary of State, the Rt Hon John Reid, that Northern Ireland was becoming a ‘cold house’ for unionists.”

The Ulster Unionists, the Reverend Ian Paisley’s Democratic Unionists and the cross-community Alliance Party have been fiercely critical of the 50:50 quota which was designed to redress the religious imbalance in Northern Ireland’s police.

The SDLP, the only nationalist party to endorse and take part in Northern Ireland’s new policing structures, has supported the quota.

Sinn Féin has refused to recognise the new police service and has boycotted participation on local policing liaison boards with politicians and community contacts.

The workforce of the PSNI’s predecessor, the Royal Ulster Constabulary, was mostly Protestant.

The UK government implemented a 50:50 quota following the Patten Commission’s report on police reform to ensure more Catholics entered the service,

Lady Hermon, the wife of former Royal Ulster Constabulary Chief Constable Sir Jack Hermon, said her party was “implacably opposed to legalised religious discrimination”.

She argued the quota should be ended immediately and “much greater effort should be made to eliminate paramilitary intimidation of Catholic recruits and their families, since such intimidation was always the major cause for low Catholic recruitment to the police in Northern Ireland.”