Sectarianism in Northern Ireland Police

The RUC is to be replaced by the Police Service of Northern Ireland

By our correspondent Kevin Connolly

A recruitment drive for the new Police Service of Northern Ireland is expected to begin on Friday, despite the Government failing to get the backing of either Sinn Fein or the SDLP for the force.

Both parties claim the new service represents a watering down of the recommendations contained in Chris Patten's report on the future of the RUC.

They're refusing to recommend that young nationalists join unless their concerns are addressed.

At St Malachy's school in North Belfast, a Catholic Grammar school, the headmaster who's been in charge for 13 years can't remember a single school leaver going into the RUC in his time.

It seems something that nationalists aren't welcome to

St Malachy's pupil

The current crop of A level students were just starting at St Malachy's when the first paramilitary ceasefires were declared - but they say for Catholics and Nationalists on this issue nothing has changed.

They wouldn't consider joining the police unless there are fundamental reforms.

With policing, as with so many other issues in Northern Ireland, you can't explain the present without understanding the past.

They've got to have an inclusive police servic

Brian Feeney

The nationalist commentator Brian Feeney says that since partition Catholics have seen the RUC as a force established to defend Northern Ireland against the threat of republican violence, not as a service designed to fight crime and keep public order.

He thinks that encouraging young Catholics to join up would be tantamount to endorsing the force.

The RUC will be replaced by a new force

The hardest task in the peace process is the creation of a police force acceptable to unionists which the SDLP and Sinn Fein are prepared to encourage young Catholics to join.

Danny Morrison, a former IRA prisoner turned writer, says as far he's concerned the proposals for a new police service produced so far fall a long way short of that.

It's worth remembering that there are many unionists to whom RUC officers are heroes and who don't believe any reform is necessary.

But this is a portrait of attitudes within the nationalist community, because reforms have been aimed at making the new police service acceptable to that community.

With that thought in mind, the last word goes to one of the teenagers at St Malachy's school, whose opinions will be crucial in determining what sort of Northern Ireland emerges from the peace process: "We need to have a police force that's going to police this place fairly".