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Northern Ireland (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill

The subject of 50:50 recruitment is very emotive, but it must be put into a particular context. The hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. Robinson) has said that the recruitment of members of the Catholic community to the then RUC was prohibited by the IRA, but that ignores the fact that before the campaign of violence by the IRA, the number of Catholics in the RUC was very small and totally disproportionate to the community structure. I say to those who favour the abolition of 50:50 recruitment that before the IRA’s campaign of violence, there was a chill factor in the Catholic community, which believed that the RUC was a Protestant police force for a Protestant Parliament for a Protestant people. The Patten investigation into how the police in Northern Ireland could be fully supported by both communities and proportionately represented by both communities led to 50:50 recruitment, but it was not the only body to make that suggestion. In its third report on 8 July 1998, the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee stated:"““As the RUC’s figures show, without some radical change in the force it will take a generation to redress the religious imbalance.””"