Officers must be an integral part of community they come from: Hayes

man behind the report which transformed policing in Northern Ireland says changing attitudes can take longer than simply changing rules.

Dr Maurice Hayes, the author of the Patten Report into policing and widely credited with creating the All-Ireland winning culture of Down’s Gaelic footballers in the 1960s, commended the GAA for voting out a key rule that banned members of the British security forces from its ranks.

However, he also said he believed there is more work to be done with members of the PSNI being embedded in their own communities.

Speaking in response to the Peadar Heffron revelations in The Sunday Independent, Dr Hayes, the first Catholic Northful ern Ireland Ombudsman, said getting the GAA on board was a key vehicle to transforming the make-up of the police force here.

“The important thing is Patten was to make the police service representative of the people it served. And that meant all the people and all the classes of people it served,” said Hayes (right).

“The glaring mismatch at that time, and the one we saw as an essential for any trust... was in the number of Catholics (in the police), 6% I think it was at that time. Our desire was to bring it up to the critical mass, 30% or thereabouts, and hoped it would take off from there. The other thing was, the key path or the cultural expression, the sense of community in the nationalist population came through the GAA and their involvement in the local club. The GAA were the one outside body

that we made a reference to suggesting that they might change their rule (21), which they did, I am very glad to say. And that opened doors up.”

Dr Hayes also spoke of his sadness at the attack on a man who had “done more for Gaelic games in the police than anyone else”.

“As regards Peadar Heffron, the guy has suffered terribly,” continued Mr Hayes.

“I mean, what he has come through has been heroic in a way. When you think of it. You have to think of what people have been through.”

While Heffron felt snubbed by some of his Creggan clubmates after joining the new PSNI, Dr Hayes said that while rules can be changed, it can take much longer for attitudes to change with them.

“The GAA can only do a certain amount,” he said. “People can change rules — changing attitudes takes a lot longer. And a lot depends on what happens at local level.”

He said that during the funeral of a PSNI officer killed by dissidents there had been a power THE show of unity. “I remember seeing a copy of the photograph of the police and the GAA handling the coffin at Ronan Kerr’s funeral,” he said. “Mickey Harte and his companions made clear it was a powerful, symbolic thing. I showed it to (Chris) Patten at the time and he thought it was very satisfying in a way. But they do what they can and things go slowly. But I think it is important that the forces recognise the GAA is open and that people make use of the openness that is there.”

Hayes insists his vision was not to have a separate GAA club for PSNI officers, but to remain within their own clubs.

“I think the whole point of Patten was that policing would not be a separate priesthood if you like, that you would be part of the community you live in,” he said.