A persistent story in recent years has been the decline of Catholic recruits into the PSNI. Recent figures have thrust that story back into the headlines. The Derry Journal reports that
The number of Catholics applying to join the PSNI as part of its student officer recruitment campaign has fallen by 20.1 per cent year on year.Just 1,096 (26.7 per cent) of 4,104 total applicants to the PSNI’s 2026 student officer recruitment campaign self-identified as Catholic, according to figures released this week by the service.Last year 1,387 (28.8 per cent) of 4,822 applicants were Catholic so there has been a 21 per cent (291 fewer) decline of Catholic applicants year-on-year.
“There will be much commentary around this 13-year low in Catholic applicants to join the PSNI, but unfortunately this trajectory has been clear for some time and these figures are in no way surprising…Unless we see drastic changes things will only get worse, with Policing Board projections putting the number of officers from a Catholic background at just 23% in 10 years’ time.”
The decline in Catholic representation is concerning due to the belief that a police force should be representative of the community it polices, and the decrease in Catholic representation on the force can lead to issues if the force is increasingly considered to only be representative of one part of that community. These concerns are what led to the Patten Report on policing over a quarter of a century ago (when Catholics constituted only 8% of the then RUC). In the current climate there is a renewed focus on the solution the Patten Report proposed to rectify the imbalance; 50-50 recruitment. The policy was allowed to lapse in 2011 by then Conservative Secretary of State Owen Paterson after roughly ten years of operation which saw the Catholic percentage of the police service rise to just under 30%. Whilst the policy helped in redressing the balance in representation, Unionist politicians agitated for its removal as it meant qualified candidates from a Protestant background who aspired to join the police sometimes found their ambitions blocked. The question has arisen as to whether the policy should be revived.
According to this BBC news report, Sinn Féin now argues the policy should be brought back…
On Monday, Sinn Fein policing board member Deirdre Hargey said her party was planning to raise the matter when it met Chief Constable Jon Boutcher later. She said the policy should never have been removed…”Its removal demonstrates that we’re seeing a downward trajectory in numbers and recruitment figures and we need to rescue that before the situation deteriorates more,” said Hargey.
She rejected suggestions that nationalist politicians were not doing enough to encourage Catholics to join the PSNI. “We have been proactive…any person that comes forward and wants to become a member, we would encourage them to do that but there’s a job of work to be done within the PSNI to recognise barriers.” Hargey said there was a “culture” that needed to be addressed as well as ongoing issues around Troubles legacy matters.
DUP leader Gavin Robison on the other hand has reiterated his opposition in the same report…
“In his weekly email to party members, he said there had been a “predictable” call for the return of 50:50 since the latest recruitment figures were released. “That would be a mistake,” the Belfast East MP said. “It would reintroduce discrimination and undermine merit. Representation cannot be built by excluding capable applicants from other backgrounds.”
Robinson said “chill factors still existed for Catholic applicants to the police in Northern Ireland”.”Pretending otherwise helps no-one. But acknowledging that reality cannot be where the discussion stop,” he said. “For too long, there has been an absence of sustained and wholehearted leadership within republicanism to challenge those barriers directly.”
The lack of agreement between the two biggest parties means a solution, if any, is probably some way off.
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