The Police (Northern Ireland) Act, 2000, passed into law when it was given the royal assent by Queen Elizabeth on Thursday. The Royal Ulster Constabulary is statutorily replaced by the Police Service of Northern Ireland. A moment of historic significance has arrived: for the first time there is provision for policing by consent of the two communities in Northern Ireland. Yet the debate trundles on about who won and who lost. Some unionists, nationalists and republicans alike fail to see the bigger picture. There now exists the possibility of a police force with a 50:50 recruitment policy among nationalists and unionists.
The Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, entered the debate from Zagreb yesterday. He could not recommend that nationalists should join the Police Service of Northern Ireland as it is planned at present. It was too early, he suggested, for the SDLP and Sinn Fein to nominate members of the Policing Board. The most difficult issue of all, Mr Ahern said, was the emotion created by flags and emblems. A different attitude is being advanced by Senator Maurice Hayes, the only Northern Ireland Catholic on the Patten Commission. He is recommending that Catholics should join the new force. The nationalist parties would have to decide, he said, whether they would "settle for 90 per cent of something or 100 per cent of nothing".
Two other entrants into the debate about whether Catholics should now join the Police Service of Northern Ireland also took opposing views yesterday. Mgr Denis Faul published a letter in the Irish News advocating that young Catholics should be free to join the new force "as a civic duty". These young recruits should have their human rights respected and not be intimidated by any of the paramilitary organisations. Mr Gerry Kelly, Sinn Fein's policing spokesman, presents an analysis of the new Act versus the Patten Report in this newspaper today and concludes that young nationalists and republicans do not wish to join any police organisation which is secret or capable of hiding its own mistakes or abuses of its authority.
Mr Mandelson's retreat from the full Patten prescription is regrettable. But it is time to live with reality. The Police Act is on the statute book with the denunciations of both nationalists and unionists ringing all round it. For unionists, the name of the RUC has been consigned to history. For nationalists, the symbolic issues of flags and emblems have been kicked into another forum. But Mr Mandelson stated in the House of Commons last Tuesday that the cross community consent required to decide these issues would not be a matter of a narrow majority; majority support from each of the two communities serving on the board would be required for decisions.
The passage of the Act enables the process of creating a new police service - which can, hopefully, command the support of both sections of the community - to begin. Imperfect though the transition from the Patten Report to the Police Act may be, both communities have won and lost and the deficiencies hopefully can be addressed. The SDLP and Sinn Fein are participating in government in Northern Ireland. There is consensus on the institutions of the Belfast Agreement. It is as stark as this; these valuable achievements will not endure if there is not a universal willingness to support the PSNI.