What are peoples views on the new Police Service for Northern Ireland

(The PSNI formerly the RUC - Royal Ulster Constabulary)?

I applied to join as one of the very first new recruits. The application procedure took about 6 months. After the initial application form came an examination by my own GP (doctor) and an eyetest by an optician (paid for by oneself)....to be taken to the first testing stage (at a hotel in Belfast) where you sat several tests - written exams, an interview, two role play situations and an exam relative to a video you were shown. I must point out that the recruitment procedure is carried out by the independent Consensia partnership and on this first occasion i noted many american and australian accents. i also noted a panel of interviewers and ALSO several independent lay people watching the actaul interviewers

The second stage of the recruitment involved another trip to belfast for a full medical conducted by BMI health services (not the NHS or police medical staff) whereby you are examined and quizzed on your previously submitted health questionairre....medical, eye test, hearing test, urine sample The third stage involved the physical assesment including the mini assault course and firearms test and also the Police Initial Recruitment Test as sat by ALL applicants to ANY police force in the UK.

At all stages I noted foreign accents and I also had to fill in a very

detailed security vetting form which was sent to the PSNI

I received a letter from the Consensia partnership at each individual stage stating that i had passed and progressed to the next stage and received a final letter stating that I had successfully passed the recruitment procedure and my name was being passed to the PSNI.

As you can imagine I was overjoyed as it was the result of 6 months of hard work and training.

From over 8000 applicants (of which 64 % protestant, 36 % Catholic ) only 480 passed the recruitment procedure.

Unfortunately the government has introduced the 50/50 catholic / protestant & other recruitment procedure as opposed to the normal "merit" procedure used everywhere else in the world. Whilst I understand the good intentions to get the police to represent the entire community (The RUC was 92 % Protestant), I am not sure that this way is fair......

I received a letter from the RUC stating that I was not being offered a

position because I got a lower score than other people from my community

background........

Of the 480 who passed only 150 were catholic and due to the 50/50 rule this meant that only the top 150 "others" could be recruited.......by this procedure I believe it may result in discrimination by the fact that it may be possible for "others" who had lower scores than the top 150 "others" to actually have higher scores than some of the 150 catholics......

what do people think of this?