Agreement Reached in the Multi-Party Negotiations - Transitional ...

Treatment (Northern Ireland) Order 1998 which provides a statutory exception for
employers to address any lack of fair participation through affirmative action and to do so,
where appropriate, in consultation with the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland’. 287
That the sectarian issue is very much at the heart of plans for affirmative action is clear:
The Government, as an employer, is also committed to promotion and deployment on the basis of
merit and suitability and, like any good employer, it does not and indeed could not lawfully take the
private religious or political views of individual employees into account in making such decisions’. 288
The police service, the Policing Board, the Police Ombudsman and the Northern Ireland
Office were eventually designated bodies for the purposes of section 75 of the Northern
Ireland Act 1998.
The police should contract out the recruitment of both police officers and civilians into
the police service. There should be lay involvement, including community representatives,
on recruitment panels. 289
‘Merit must remain a critical criterion for selection for the police service. We do not
propose that religious or cultural identity, gender or ethnicity should be treated as a
makeweight for merit’. 290 This does not acknowledge practices in the past and at which
may continue at subtle/subliminal levels. The Committee on the Administration of Justice
does not accept the merit argument which ‘betrays a very simplistic notion of the concept
of merit that fails to appreciate the culturally relativistic nature of the term…a police
service can only hope to achieve the trust and confidence of the whole community if it is
representative of the whole community. In these circumstances, requiring officers to be
members of a particular community in order to ensure representativeness is we believe a
valid one’. 291
An equal number of Protestants and Catholics should be drawn from the pool of
qualified candidates. 292
We have consulted the Fair Employment Commission about the proposal above and we have taken
an opinion from counsel on the legal position. We are advised that, although the proposal would
require an amendment to domestic legislation, it is not incompatible with European legislation, so it
is possible to make the requisite amendment to the law. Regrettably, the legal position is not the
same in respect of recruitment of women, where European legislation clearly rules out such a
proposal.
This position has been countered by the Northern Ireland Women’s Coalition:
We would suggest that if domestic legislation is not contravening the spirit or the purpose of the
European Equal Treatment Directive 1976, it is possible that it may not be held to be in
contravention of the Directive. EC proposals on other legislation may place religion in the same
position, legally, as gender is now.
Provisions for increasing the numbers of women at senior level should have been
highlighted.
Introduction of part-time work, job sharing, career breaks, flexible shifts, childcare
facilities. 293 While these are important, recommendations targeted at women are mainly
287 Implementation Plan Update 2001
288 Ibid.
289 Recommendations 117, 118
290 Recommendation 120
291 CAJ Commentary on Recommendations in the Patten Report
292 Recommendation 121
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