Catholic leader calls for 50-50 PSNI recruitment

The leader of the Catholic Church in Ireland has said the PSNI should return to 50-50 recruitment.

Archbishop Eamon Martin made the comments during an interview with the Irish Catholic newspaper.

He also encouraged more Catholics to joining what he called a “noble vocation”.

“If we do not have a police service which is representative of the society that it polices, you immediately begin to run into accusations that the police service is not friendly to Catholic people, or you allow a vacuum to be created which allows others to exploit intimidation and fear in communities,” the Archbishop said.

“Because Patten’s target of moving towards a police service that is representative of the society that it polices, I feel that in recent years it has reached a bit of a plateau and I would be concerned about that.”

Referring to the current situation in the PSNI, the Church’s Primate of All-Ireland said: “It’s almost 20% short of the percentage of young Catholics who are out there.

“If you think of that age group of young people in Northern Ireland, almost 50% of those young people are Catholic and I think it should be a matter of concern, not just for Catholic communities, but indeed for the whole community.”