Figures obtained by The Irish News show that just 21.6% are from a Catholic background with 6.8% openly nationalist
By Conor Sheils
May 30, 2025 at 6:00am BST
Just over one in every five police officers recruited in Northern Ireland in the past five years is from a Catholic background – with just 6.8% openly nationalist, the Irish News can reveal.
Data obtained under the Freedom of Information act makes clear that Catholics are still not joining the PSNI in large numbers and the force could see a decline in the number of Catholic officers when compared with the years following the Good Friday Agreement.
The latest information shows that the PSNI recruited 1,377 officers in total between 2020 and the end of March 2025.
Of the officers recruited during that period, 76.3% came from a Protestant background, while just 21.6% from a Catholic background.
According to the 2021 census, 45.7% of the north’s population were either raised Catholic or currently identify as such today.
The PSNI is currently made up of around 32% Catholic officers.
However, those figures may be reflective of the period between 2001 and 2011 when the force had a 50:50 policy in which a Catholic officer had to be hired for every officer from a Protestant or other religious background.
In the years that followed the percentage of Catholics in the police grew from around 8% before the RUC was disbanded in 2001.
However, the 50:50 policy was criticised by some unionist politicians who claimed it was discriminatory against Protestants and was eventually scrapped in 2011.
In terms of political affiliation – the data showed that 24.8% of police officers identified as unionist, compared with just 6.8% as nationalist. However, 57.8% selected ‘none’ when asked for their political views.
Meanwhile, the data also showed a significant drop in the overall number of people joining the PSNI in recent years – with 405 new recruits joining in 2020, compared to just 86 in 2023 and 234 new police officers in the last full year, 2024.
The stats up to March this year show that 93 police officers have joined up.
Liam Kelly, Chair, Police Federation for Northern Ireland, said the low recruitment numbers come down to insufficient funding from Stormont.
“The recruitment ’tap’ depends entirely on a sufficient budget. Right now, the budget is insufficient. Without intervention from Executive ministers, the PSNI will run up a deficit of £21 million this year. The situation is dire,“ he said.
Meanwhile, Mr Kelly, blamed the lack of recruits from a Catholic or nationalist background on threats from dissident republican groups.
“Individuals from all backgrounds are actively encouraged to apply to become officers. Securing sufficient numbers from Catholic and nationalist backgrounds is against a backdrop of a continuing unacceptable threat level from dissident republican groups,” he said.
“Individuals from Catholic and nationalist backgrounds are fearful that they and their families could be targeted by dissidents who want to maintain a barrier between their community and policing generally.
“There is a leadership and supportive role that must be given by politicians to people from Catholic and nationalist background who want a rewarding career in the PSNI. If that were to happen in a determined manner, then some of the concerns held by potential recruits from a Catholic and Nationalist background would be addressed.”
The PSNI was contacted.
by pickneyboy3000
29 comments
Seems a large portion selected no political affiliation. Somehow I don’t believe most of those people are actually a-political. It’s very likely anonymous, but I’d imagine for many there is no benefit in announcing their actual political beliefs within the service.
Look at what they did to Trevor Birnie, and now what they are doing to Sue Pentel; I think plenty of grassroots officers have the best of intentions, but to me, the upper echelons of the PSNI still feels like the RUC.
There’s also the fact that the “restructured” psni effectively just gave promotions and huge pensions to ruc officers who colluded and helped murder family members of the people they want to recruit. The fact they won’t admit the collusion and actively go out of their way to persecute the people seeking justice and reporting on it doesn’t help anything. Until there is open and honest discussion about how the ruc/psni facilitated the murder of innocent members for the public the opinion in nationalist areas will not change.
PSNI have been lambasted by judges for refusing to give over evidence into RUC killings of Catholics.
PSNI “We need to try and attract Catholics to us, why won’t they join”?
I’ve known people who considered joining the PSNI and opted for the Gardai instead over this.
Maybe Catholics don’t care about law and order. How do you change that?
As I’ve said over and over, the only way they’ll achieve anything close to equal numbers will be to rip out the upper structure in its entirety and replace it with senior officers from the Gardaí and other forces not aligned to British government interests. But it’ll never happen since the force exists to serve Unionism, the NIO and British Government as is perfectly illustrated by their mass illegal spying on over 500 solicitors and 300 journalists – according to Barry McCaffrey, who won the court case against them, as soon as anyone investigates collusion or misconduct in the PSNI or RUC they become the suspect. Not Loyalists or RUC who were involved in collusive murder – the journalists and solicitors trying to expose collusion. And that’s just since 2011. Funny how that story, that absolutely seismic exposure of mass illegal conduct at the highest court in the UK….just kinda….got forgotten about. Musta been a few D-Notices shared about that one.
[https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4g2q08302lo](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4g2q08302lo)
It would also help if they didn’t the cops didn’t share misogynistic, racist and islamaphobic material on their private whatsapps [https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-61650204](https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-61650204) or expel a family of a suicide victim so they could desecrate the deceased’s corpse, expose them, photograph them and share it on their whatsapp with the subtitle – “another dead taig”. [https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/family-of-suicide-victim-tell-of-horror-at-claims-psni-officers-defiled-body/41823504.html](https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/family-of-suicide-victim-tell-of-horror-at-claims-psni-officers-defiled-body/41823504.html)
It would also help if they, you know, policed loyalist terrorists and actually disciplined their officers for anything instead of putting them on gardening leave for a few years.
In my area if it was found out your were in the PSNI and catholic you wouldn’t be walking for much longer unfortunately and friends and family would disown you.
Pay those officers properly and more people will be interested & apply, disregarding of religion or political affiliation. Honestly, the pay at the PSNI is in my opinion shocking and does IMO prevent them from getting good recruits from both sides.
Polish*
Catholics don’t want to join a rebranded sectarian police force whose former officers brutally murdered and intimated their kin.
In other news water is wet.
Pro British heavily armed militia force. You think they might be sending out the wrong signal to Irish Catholics?
What’s never pointed out in these statistical breakdowns is the actual demographic makeup of the recruitment-aged population in Northern Ireland society as a whole.
At the 2021 census what proportion of the 21-35 age bracket stated “Protestant”? Are 75% of the twenty-somethings and thirty-somethings in Northern Ireland really from a PUL background? Any workplaces I’ve been in over the past 25 years have been very diverse, but PSNI continues to draw from the same shrinking pool.
“Just”, makes it sound bad. It’s pretty good IMO.
Oh look surprising that Irish people do not want join a British militia force
There really are not too many people under 35 who have experienced sectarianism or collusion again then due to being Catholic. I think that is less of an issue these days.
Plenty would join but it’s still the looming threat that prevents many, as well as the pay and working conditions.
Bring meritocracy back.
Wonder what the real figures are. If these are the massaged figures then the games a busted flush.
If you’re from a CNR background living in a CNR area , joining the police can mean ostracisatuon for you and any of your family who don’t condemn you. And the potential risk of getting shot.
Its hardly the PSNI’s fault. There’s a republican element within the CNR community which has a vested interest in keeping Catholic numbers as low as possible.
From personal experience in a nationalist area I know people who wanted to join, but common sense dictated this was not an intelligent decision unless they were moving to a different area.
This is a big shame in 2025 that should be taken into consideration. People should be able to make their own judgement on the PSNI as a career choice without feeling under threat for doing so
Because it’s not a normal police force and we all know it.
It should be disbanded and two new services created separating the national security role.
You could report a potential criminal act to the PSNI but the value to the public of acting on that might be outweighed by a national security interest, which some MI5 guy might decide.
In what other normal UK Police Force could that happen?
Clearly there’s still a bit of a hangover from the RUC days but even if genuine change is made and it’s policing for all (and all that jazz) are Catholics from working class areas really going to sign up? If the troubles even come back (or even if some splinter group like Óglaigh na hÉireann start shit) it really doesn’t take a genius to figure out where you work and next thing you know you’ll be checking your car each morning for suspicious devices.
Fuck putting your family through that.
But does it matter. The young recruits are like most of are kids in Northern Ireland and don’t have the time to hate other religions. Its more about how the psni deal with people especially people with mental health issues
I wonder why, old RUC heads still hanging about, softly-softly approach to Loyalist paramilitaries, default blame for anything to be pinned on dissident Republicans. Seems like a great place for a Fenian alright.
I’m surprised it’s that high tbh.
https://preview.redd.it/8fpxkktixx3f1.jpeg?width=2048&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bf5b28c3c994e4e0ee8e15c2f61ea5330f2e5c4c
You forgot to count the Jewish fella from Ballymena.
Hmm wonder why. A force that colluded with the brits to carry out murders of innocent civilians and then tried to hush the evidence.
When you see actions like that of the police officer last weekend in Belfast making an absolute tool of himself vs a peaceful anti-Israeli genocide regime protest, then it’s hardly attractive for any half intellectual human to be bothered with.
What does religion matter.
If those retarded Dissidents would fuck off it would probably be different.
Imagine having to deal with this sort of trivial nonsense in daily life. Like – how many postmen are RC or Presbyterian? The people in the North go around constantly sniffing each others butts to find out each others affiliations. That’s what unity would mean! Thank god it’s over forty years in the future. I couldn’t take that sort of idiocy here in the Republic. Up the Republic!
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