Originally Posted by oscartango

I was in a garda station in Clare a few years ago (giving a statement as a witness to an accident, I might swiftly add before the wisecracks start) and the place had loads of Catholic icons on public view - e.g. Child of Prague statue, Sacred Heart picture - as well as a crucifix on the wall.

I just wondered if it was appropriate, and what we might say if the PSNI had Protestant/Orange Order stuff in their public offices.

Originally Posted by drbob1972

even it if there has been a 10 fold increase, its still 0.1 % or 1% if theres been a hundred fold increase, either way its still pretty unrepresentative, esp with protestents being 3.7% of the population, the point being that a police force should ideally be representative of the community it serves but should also be capable of serving all in society equally and not just based in religion / ethnicity, etc. I as a non Roman Catholic have never one in all my dealing with the police ever had the slightest issue with them, its only a pity that the same cannot be said for NI

Originally Posted by mothball

Nice to see that PSF certainly doesn’t endorse sectarian head counting.
The amount of people belonging to a particular religion in any police force shouldn’t really matter.

Originally Posted by NeilW

Yes, but it's Northern Ireland. So it does.

Originally Posted by factual

I don't endorse sectarian headcounting. However in the context of the police its important to ensure that it becomes as representative as possible and one measure of this is the religious breakdown (by community background). Other indicators such as number of ethnic minorities number of GLBTs and number of women are also important. It is good to see things moving rapidly in the right direction.

Originally Posted by Moogie

The RIC was 80 - 90% Catholic but that didn't stop Dan Breen and Seán Treacy putting a few rounds into Constables Patrick MacDonnell and James O'Connell. By their names I'd assume they were Catholic too.