Tomorrow, the first recruits for the new police force in the North willgraduate. In the first of a two-part series on policing andpolitics, Gerry Moriarty, Northern Editor, looks atprospects for the PSNI
With both pride and trepidation more than 40 Catholics and Protestants parade into history tomorrow as the first graduates of the Police Service of Northern Ireland. The RUC is dead. Long live the PSNI.
Not only will these new recruits be stepping onto a difficult beat but into a searching and sometimes unforgiving public and political glare. The Irish Times wished to interview some of the policing pioneers for this series but, perhaps with good cause, they declined the opportunity.
It's easy to think of reasons. Young Northern Catholics, for instance, would be understandably chary about disclosing their personal details, hopes and ambitions. Working-class Protestants might have similar misgivings about being identified in their communities. There are plenty of people out there who would want to make life difficult for them and their families.
They will also be conscious of Northern Ireland's capacity to collapse into political apoplexy over the most bizarre and seemingly mundane of issues. In recent weeks we had another example of the peas-potatoes-and-carrots controversies that arise from time to time at official functions (think of the colours).
The Policing Board was so moved by some unionist sensitivities surrounding the green, white and gold respectively of the PSNI uniform, shirt and badge that they decided that in 12 months' time the badge will be changed to silver.
Hardly any surprise therefore that the recruits, with guidance from their policing masters, are adopting a take-it-steady approach.
There have been many big days in Northern Ireland in the past 10 years, but tomorrow undoubtedly is another one. There were problems surrounding the planned presence of the now former PSNI chief constable, Sir Ronnie Flanagan, and the Garda Commissioner, Mr Pat Byrne, at the graduation.
In other societies these would be viewed as petty squabbles. But here they are real. Yet the Policing Board found a solution. Sir Ronnie and Mr Byrne shall go to the graduation.
The board's chairman and vice-chairman, Prof Desmond Rea and Mr Denis Bradley, are products of the unionist and nationalist traditions who want this to work. They and their colleagues have demonstrated a pragmatic willingness to do the business.
Just as, and totally against expectations, they resolved the issue of the police crest.
The PSNI graduates should also know they are entering a service where there are serious problems of morale, a fact identified in the board's first annual report published last week. The average sick leave rate is a stubbornly high 24 days for each police officer, which the board hopes to reduce through "rewards and sanctions".
Police chiefs are anxious that the recruits are not sucked into this culture. They argue that while some of the old hands may have lost their vigour for the job, and bitterly resent the passing into history of the RUC, a more positive approach has been developing generally within the force.
They say too that the RUC recruits of the past five or six years are imbued with the necessary motivation and drive and will shield the neophytes from any bad influence.
At the moment full-time police numbers are 500 down on the 7,500 required, which probably will mean postponing the disbandment of the full-time Police Reserve, as Patten proposed. But as this rolling recruitment continues on a 50:50 Catholic/Prot-estant basis the problem of personnel shortages will gradually be resolved.
In general terms it is safe to say that the PSNI will enjoy the confidence of middle-class unionists and nationalists; it is in the working-class loyalist and republican communities that people will often call on the paramilitaries rather than the police to deal with local crime.
It may sound curious but in the short to medium term there is probably a greater chance of working-class republicans supporting the PSNI than of their loyalist counterparts endorsing the new service. The trick lies in the British and Irish governments persuading Sinn Féin onto the Policing Board, which it currently boycotts.
That's the next big political challenge and the next big political prize. Sir Ronnie Flanagan, Mr Bradley and others have predicted that Sinn Féin eventually will sign up. Last week Mr Martin McGuinness, while again complaining that the new policing system was not properly accountable to the community, was almost sanguine about the chances of Sinn Féin finally taking its two seats on the board.
"We're not there yet but I have confidence that with goodwill on both sides we can reach that point," he said.
And if you accept the argument that you can disarm one day and rearm the next day then having Sinn Féin on the Policing Board is of far greater significance than IRA decommissioning.
Careful choreography must be followed here to bring Sinn Féin further into the process. Neither Bertie Ahern nor Tony Blair will want to make any concessions that Sinn Féin can trumpet over the SDLP ahead of Assembly elections in May next year, particularly as it was the SDLP's gamble in joining the board that ensured the transition from the RUC to the PSNI. Therefore it may take until after the Assembly elections before this is fully resolved.
Mr McGuinness himself pointed to a possible way around the problem. He indicated that the US policing oversight commissioner, Mr Tom Constantine, who this month begins his six-month review of the policing arrangements, could have an important role in devising the routine that allows Sinn Féin to gavotte onto the board.
One of Sinn Féin's chief gripes is that all policing decisions ultimately rest with the Northern Secretary, Dr John Reid, and that there is an absence of true accountability. Yet, when one compares the trilateral relationship between the PSNI, the board and the Police Ombudsman it appears obvious that the board and Ombudsman, Mrs Nuala O'Loan, are no slouches when it comes to asserting their independence. Just ask Sir Ronnie.
Another complaint is that the Special Branch "is still a force within a force", to use the language of Patten. This too is changing and the Branch is at last being subsumed into the CID, although it will maintain a degree of autonomy that always will be anathema to Sinn Féin.
And after the debacle of Castlereagh it seems inevitable that irrespective of Sinn Féin's views the Special Branch will have its wings clipped. The astonishing break-in and theft of confidential papers has the potential to destroy the police's intelligence-gathering and informant-handling system, not to mention the threat to Special Branch detectives and their informants. Root-and-branch reform appears inevitable after this fiasco.
Dr Reid has tried to leave most decisions to the PSNI and the Policing Board and has envisaged that within two or three years a department of justice could be created that would give greater accountability powers to the Executive, as Sinn Féin is demanding.
So there are real possibilities Sinn Féin could yet come farther into the parlour. And were that to unfold then greater pressure would fall on unionist and loyalist politicians to persuade their working-class supporters to fully endorse the PSNI.
None of this will be easy. Northern Ireland is still an abnormal society, entrenched by-products of the Troubles are murder, racketeering, smuggling, drugs dealing, "punishment" attacks, expulsions, and other crime, some carried out by paramilitaries, some by ordinary criminals who perhaps have learned their trade while formerly in the IRA, UVF, UDA or other groups.
These, as well as ordinary policing matters, will provide more than enough challenges for the new police officers and their established colleagues. Their hope is that gradually, whether rookies or regulars, the broad public will come to support them in their endeavours.