Part of Police (Northern Ireland) Bill [Lords] – in a Public Bill Committee at 3:00 pm on 11 March 2003.
The whole purpose of this is to provide arrangements that discriminate, on a temporary basis, in order to address a serious problem that I will come to in a moment. The point that the hon. Gentleman makes bears directly upon the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Harris) made. The Chief Constable has been able to recruit to the PSNI well in excess of the levels of recruitment that even the Patten commission had expected he could achieve. That being the case, individuals are not being turned away from vacant posts within the PSNI.