STATISTICS released this week that show over a third those who have applied to the new Northern Ireland Police Service are Roman Catholics have been greeted warily by nationalist parties in Northern Ireland.

Chief Constable, Sir Ronnie Flanagan, presented details about the community background of applicants to the chairman of the Police Authority, Mr Pat Armstrong on Wednesday June 13.

Of the 7,700 people who sent in application forms, 35 per cent were Catholic and 40 per cent of the applicants were female. Of the male applicants 36 per cent were Catholic and 34 percent of the female applicants were Catholic.

Sinn Féin and the SDLP, the main nationalist parties in Northern Ireland, both maintain that attracting Catholic applications for the new Police Service is not difficult, but that recruiting Catholics from nationalist heartlands will continue to be problematic.

As reported in the Irish News, Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams said: “This has never been about Catholics joining a police service in the North of Ireland. This is about whether nationalists and republicans can join.”

Martin McGuinness questioned whether the applications came from republican strongholds such as Crossmaglen, Ballymurphy, Coalisland, or Magherafelt. He said that he thought they did not.

The SDLP’s Alex Attwood expressed his wish to see the police genuinely representative: “Regardless of figures the issue is to create a genuinely representative police service which has to be representative of all the elements in society.”

The Chief Constable said: "I believe it is appropriate to provide this community background and gender make-up of the applicants, in the interest of openness and transparency. The widespread interest shown in joining the new police service is very encouraging and I look forward to further progress."

Secretary of State, Dr John Reid said it was encouraging that a large percentage of applicants for the new Police Service had been from the Catholic community and that many were from women. He said it suggested that young people had the courage to look to the future.

It is anticipated that the recruitment process being carried out by Consensia, the independent recruitment specialists, will be completed by September 2001 when the pool of qualified applicants will be presented to the Chief Constable. After that stage, 260 people will be selected to begin training. (AMcE)