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An independent review should be carried out into the Police Service of Northern Ireland’s (PSNI’s) culture and recruitment of Catholic officers, the chair of the Catholic Police Guild has said. <\/p>\n
Supt Gerry Murray said the number of Catholic applications for the PSNI’s latest recruitment drive is “disappointing”. <\/p>\n
It comes after Chief Constable Jon Boutcher revealed that of the 3,500 applications made to the PSNI, 27% are from a Catholic background<\/a>. <\/p>\n “We’re not where we need to be, but Rome wasn’t built in a day” Mr Boutcher said. <\/p>\n Supt Murray said there “is still a long way to go”. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n “Policing for the Catholic community has never been in their DNA” he said.<\/p>\n “If you look at people who joined the police from a different background to myself, their fathers, their grandfathers have all come through the police so there is that natural family cohesiveness with people from a different community background.”<\/p>\n He added that policing has “never been inviting to people from the Catholic community”.<\/p>\n Spt Murray cited the PSNI data breach, in which the details of around 9,500 workers were mistakenly published in response to a Freedom of Information request<\/a>, as another possible reason for the low number of applicants as safety concerns remain a “barrier to entry”. <\/p>\n “The data breach was a sharp reminder to us all of issues of safety.<\/p>\n “It might have gone off the headlines but it is still there,” he said. <\/p>\n He called for an independent, Baroness Casey-style review<\/a> into the “culture and recruitment of police officers in Northern Ireland”.<\/p>\n