A call for a regionalised police force for Northern Ireland were made yesterday to the Patten Commission by the SDLP. Party representatives suggested the creation of up to nine separate regional forces, each to be led by a local police commissioner.
In its presentation to the Independent Commission on Policing, chaired by Mr Chris Patten, party representatives advocated the revision of the present ethos, structure and composition of the RUC. The party members said the SDLP would not shirk its responsibility to help the RUC to make the "quantum leap" needed for successful reform.
"We are presenting the concept of regionalisation because we feel that it can create the circumstances in which people will want to join and will clearly identify with the new policing service", said the SDLP Assembly member, Mr Alban Maginness.
The SDLP submission called for the setting up of a force that the nationalist community could identify with politically and ideologically.
"Nationalists must have a sense of pride, a sense of ownership in any new force," said Mr Alex Attwood, the party's spokesman on policing.
He said that a significant reduction of the imbalance in religious composition of the force between Catholics and Protestants must be achieved within two years through the use of "appropriate redundancies and affirmative action".
Mr Maginness outlined the party's demand for the introduction of an early retirement scheme for officers, disbandment of specialised units, the disarming of the force and the repeal of emergency legislation.
The party envisaged the creation of a chief police commissioner with a supervisory role over the regional forces. The regional division established by the North's health services or library boards were models that the SDLP representatives said could be adopted for the police service.
Mr Attwood dismissed proposals that former paramilitaries or released prisoners could be included in any new force. "The proposal is not one that is likely to have the support of the wider community," he said.
The SDLP submission advocated the civilianisation of the training and recruitment processes for any new force in a move away from what it referred to as the "quasi-military" style of the RUC.
The use of an external recruitment agency was recommended by the party along with the widening of training to incorporate attendance at a third-level institution for a period.
The SDLP said that the future presence of the British army in Northern Ireland was highly undesirable and that public order should be solely a police matter. Mr Attwood said the force should "borrow the best practice on this island and internationally" for how this could be successfully achieved.
The party acknowledged that RUC officers and their families were "no less having to adjust" to peacetime. "We are all emerging from the trauma of the Troubles," Mr Attwood said.