Concerns raised as PSNI ends 50/50 recruitment policy

Sinn Féin has today attacked plans by the British government to drop a Catholic recruitment drive for the police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), though the decision was welcomed by unionists.

Northern Ireland Secretary Owen Paterson said he planned to end the 50/50 recruitment of Catholics and Protestants to the police by March 28, after a decade in which Catholic numbers rose from 8% to nearly 30%.