REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE POLICE SERVICE OF NORTHERN IRELAND COLLEGE BELFAST
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE POLICE SERVICE OF NORTHERN IRELAND COLLEGE BELFAST THURSDAY, 28TH JANUARY 2009
Good afternoon, it’s pleasure to visit the College and I am grateful to Temporary Chief Superintendent Kevin Dunwoody for his kind invitation to meet the training staff and student officers. I know some are brand new recruits, others almost ready for passing out but each of you shares a commitment to a career in public service with the PSNI and to the better, happier future for Northern Ireland with which the Service has become so synonymous.
I am conscious that many of the recent recruits may not remember the fraught arguments over policing which led to the Patten Commission and to the formation of the PSNI. Many were only youngsters when the tortuous process that led to the Good Friday Agreement came to fruition in twin referenda held North and South – a moment in history when the massive overwhelming will of the people who share this island for a future of peace, equality mutual respect and good neighbourliness was shouted from the rooftops and became a powerful wind of change. It is that wind that is at your backs today. You are part of a difficult process of transition from a culture of conflict to a culture of consensus. More than that, you are leaders of that transition for the handover from the RUC to the PSNI was effected with remarkable success and generosity of spirit. The transformation of policing has been amongst the great and most outstanding dividends of peace. The threat from the old embedded culture of paramilitarism both loyalist and republican has receded significantly but not fully, for the PSNI have their tragic dead and their cruelly wounded. Those who murdered Stephen Carroll and inflicted appalling injuries on Peader Heffron hoped to destabilise the peace process, to break the resolve and solidarity of the peace-makers but in that they failed abjectly for these men are community heroes, who inspire respect from all sides and whose suffering has been a rallying call to renewed commitment to a shared and peaceful future.
We were reminded earlier this week of how real and present remain the difficulties of building that shared future. It is very much a work in the early stages of progress and requiring significant effort to move it to the next stage of development. But with the readiness of stakeholders to make every effort to get to agreed resolutions and of the continued engagement of the British and Irish Governments as guarantors and with the express will of the people for peace, the future cannot be a slide back to the past but a step forward, a step up to a dynamic and forward looking Northern Ireland.
Having spoken to your Chief Constable, Matt Baggott, I know that the PSNI is ambitious for Northern Ireland and for first-rate community policing. So much hurt, loss, death and injury, courage and conviction has been invested in today’s historic opportunity for peace and normality. So much good has already been generated and in particular it has been very encouraging to see the hugely collegial relationship develop between the Police Service of Northern Ireland and An Garda Síochána. That has to be good news for the people who share this island and bad news for those who would break the law in either jurisdiction, especially the most predatory of criminals who would rob us all of peace of heart and mind. We are facing them down together and you are crucial to that work of making streets and homes safe.
It takes courage to face into the worst of human nature in defence of the interests and values of the best. You have that courage and now you have the training to give it voice and professional skill. You have opted for one of the most challenging and responsible of vocations, a vocation that demands bravery, leadership, honesty and sheer hard work. You have the wind of convincing cross-community public support at your back. You have the hand of every peacemaker on your shoulder. I hope your work will bring you professional and personal fulfilment as it brings the gift of peace and as we build together “to fill the centuries arrears.”
I commend your instructors who make your training and your values their vocation. The investment made here will reap dividends for all who share this island and for a future very different from the past.
Go raibh míle maith agaibh go léir.