The trauma of partition and the sectarian birth pains of the Northern state worked their way into the ethos of the RUC, the Independent Commission on Policing was told in Newry last night by an SDLP spokesman, Mr Hugh Carr.
He said his party on the Newry and Mourne Council had consistently refused to join the police liaison committee because the ethos of the RUC was unionist.
He said there had been undoubted harassment of people because of where they came from and who they knew and that the new police service had to be open to everyone.
The former Down GAA county secretary, Mr P.P. Murphy, said in 1995 his county had voted to abolish Rule 21, which prohibits members of the RUC playing Gaelic games.
However, a hardening of hearts after Drumcree had led to the rule being eventually retained.
There were over 20 submissions, including one from Enniskillen man Mr Bernard O'Connor, who came specially to Newry, and who successfully sued the RUC in 1979 for ill-treatment.
But Unionist councillor Mr Danny Kennedy referred to the fact that 56 members of the RUC, one sixth of the total killed in the Troubles, had been murdered in the local district.
He said there could be no lowering of numbers or change in name in memory of those who had given their lives.
Newry and Mourne Council chairman Mr Brendan Cullen of Sinn Fein said he and his family had been harassed from an early age. He outlined a catalogue of alleged indiscipline and harassment over 30 years. Most of the submissions were hostile to the RUC in general.
But Mr Hugh Carr said there was light at the end of the tunnel with the Belfast Agreement - and that a new police service to which all could give their allegiance had to evolve.