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Northern Ireland (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill

: We have listened to arguments from the other side, and we must be frank: the Roman Catholic population never supported young men joining the RUC. I represent a wide Roman Catholic community in North Antrim. When a young man joined the police, he was visited, and his parents were told that he was never again to be allowed to stand in his own home. I have accompanied fathers and mothers who had to travel from one end of North Antrim to the other to be allowed to meet their son in peace. What was the crime of their son? He had become a member of the Royal Ulster Constabulary. I could name scores of other such incidents. The statement that the Roman Catholic population did not object to people joining the RUC is wrong—