Member's statement: PSNI Recruitment

Member's statement by Mr Trevor Clarke on 24 February 2026.

MLA

Mr Trevor Clarke

Party at the time

Democratic Unionist Party

Date

24 February 2026

Type

Member's statement

Business

Members' Statements

Heading

PSNI Recruitment

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5404074

Read the official Assembly record

Text

My statement is timely in following the previous contribution: Sinn Féin finds itself able to encourage people to apply for a bursary for studying the Irish language but not to encourage members of its community to apply to join the PSNI. In the past few weeks, much has been made of the low proportion of applications in response to the PSNI's most recent recruitment campaign that came from members of the Roman Catholic community: 26%. That is disappointing; it is disappointing because the nationalist leaders have failed their communities. I have heard feeble excuses that people were not invited to recruitment events or were not aware that the events were on, but those people are on the Policing Board, so they were well aware that the events were taking place. There is no excuse whatsoever for "nationalist leaders", as they describe themselves, not being aware that events are taking place and not showing leadership by going amongst their communities to encourage them, if they are so concerned that nationalists are not joining the police.

However, I do not believe that things will change in this country until we stop the fixation on one's community background. During 'Nolan Live' on TV last week, I heard a young man, who described himself as being from Crossmaglen, say that police officers do not look like or sound like him. I am sorry, but I do not look at police officers and try to define their community background, and I am sure that they would never wish to look like me, with my size. I am not concerned about what they look like, where they come from, where they worship or anything else. My concern is that they will be impartial and that they will come into our communities and police them in an impartial manner. From what I have seen of them, police officers whom I perceive to be from the Roman Catholic community do just that. Until the leaders from the nationalist community do otherwise and encourage people to join the police, I do not believe that things will change. The belated call for 50:50 recruitment will change nothing. We have been there, done that and got the T-shirt, yet the numbers are declining. The numbers are declining simply because the same Members opposite do not speak out when officers are attacked in their communities. A few weeks ago, I met a lady who initially told me that she was from Dunmurry. When she found out that I was a DUP representative, she was slightly more comfortable and said that a family member had joined the police. Then she admitted that she was from Ligoniel. She told me that she was annoyed and ashamed that her son had had to leave the community in which he grew up, not because he wanted to but because he was forced to after he decided to join the police and represent his community in that area. However, because he was a Catholic who had joined the police, they did not want him in that area and did not want him to represent them. I call on the Members opposite to do more in their own communities and call out the scourge and the threats against all officers and in particular those from the Roman Catholic community who are targeted. Until we resolve that issue, we will not fix the problem for people who want to join the PSNI.

It is interesting to listen to the comments about the bursary scheme. This is a career in which many people can go on to make —.

599 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

Second assessment

Jev’s answers did not settle this record, so a second model, claude-opus-5-5, read the same text (without the MLA’s name or party) and gave its reasons on 21 October 2026. How the second assessment works

Verdict

Not flagged

Public interest or divisiveness

Mixed

Against the published rubric

The statement deals with a real policy issue, the low proportion of Catholic applicants to the police, and it argues against a return to "50:50 recruitment". It also condemns the intimidation of Catholic officers who were "forced" out of their home areas. Its criticism is aimed at a party's conduct, namely not encouraging recruitment and not speaking out when officers are attacked, rather than at a community as a whole, and it explicitly calls to "stop the fixation on one's community background". The opening jab contrasting encouragement of Irish-language bursaries with silence on police recruitment is a partisan point, but it does not make the Irish language or nationalists as a group the target.

Public interest or divisiveness

The main thrust is about policing, representation and the intimidation of officers, which are matters of genuine public interest, and the speaker defends Catholic officers against targeting. The framing is heavily partisan, however. It repeatedly blames "nationalist leaders" and "the same Members opposite" and speaks of "their communities", which keeps a communal argument going even while it complains about community fixation. Both elements are substantial, but the core concerns the substance of recruitment and intimidation.

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 15:01 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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