{"id":370394,"date":"2026-01-15T01:15:14","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T01:15:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/370394\/"},"modified":"2026-01-15T01:15:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T01:15:14","slug":"difficult-choices-needed-to-recruit-more-catholics-to-psni","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/370394\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Difficult choices’ needed to recruit more Catholics to PSNI"},"content":{"rendered":"

Speaking on BBC Radio Ulster’s Evening Extra<\/a> on Wednesday, PSNI Deputy Chief Constable Bobby Singleton said he thought “anything that works to address the issue of legacy would have a potential benefit to the PSNI”.<\/p>\n

“It would allow policing to be seen, as it should be, I believe, as a contemporary public safety issue and would prevent it from being stained or tainted by the legacy of our past,” he added.<\/p>\n

Singleton said that the PSNI had made diversity “a key pillar of all of our external engagement that we will seek to try and promote policing as an employer of choice”.<\/p>\n

“That means that virtually every opportunity we get, we’re trying to promote how diverse a career in policing it can be, how rewarding it can be, both in terms of public value and the financial and learning benefits.”<\/p>\n

Between 2001 and 2011 there was a 50-50 recruitment initiative for the police in Northern Ireland, which meant there was one Catholic recruit for every one person from a Protestant or other background.<\/p>\n

Since then, there has been no legislation to address the issue.<\/p>\n

A PSNI recruitment campaign in February 2025<\/a> was the first since 2021.<\/p>\n

Singleton said on Wednesday that “25 years on, I think it’s important to recognise the significant progress that has been made”. <\/p>\n

“During that period we’ve seen the number of Catholics within the PSNI increase by over 200%,” he added. <\/p>\n

“We should never forget the ground that has been made in that respect. <\/p>\n

“With regards to women, we have somewhere in the region of two to three times the number of women as there were when we first started and comparatively with other policing organisations, the PSNI has done well, but we want to do better. <\/p>\n

“We want to be fully representative of our community.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Speaking on BBC Radio Ulster’s Evening Extra on Wednesday, PSNI Deputy Chief Constable Bobby Singleton said he thought…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":370395,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-370394","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370394","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=370394"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370394\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/370395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=370394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=370394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=370394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}