Denis Bradley believes it would be healthy outcome if the new policing board were to elect a Nationalist as Chair.
…he admitted that, as a nationalist, he wanted to see a day when someone from his community chaired the board and when the question of a person`s background was no longer an issue when they vied for a job. He recalled that at the SDLP conference he argued for society in Northern Ireland to move away as quickly as possible from the 50-50 recruitment quotas for Catholic and Protestant police officers.
The outgoing vice-chair brushed off suggestions that the election of a nationalist chair would influence whether Sinn Fein eventually ended its boycott of its Policing Board seats. “The reasons why Sinn Fein and the ultimately inevitable outcome of Sinn Fein taking its seats on the board will have nothing to do with me, Desmond Rea, or anybody on this board,” he added. “They will do it for their own political expediency.
Mick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the wider media and is a regular guest and speaking events across Ireland, the UK and Europe. Twitter: @MickFealty