SPEECH TO IRISH ASSOCIATION BY TOM KELLY

We have come to the end of a challenging, demanding but wholly productive and constructive week not just for policing, but for the entire community. Four years ago or even one year ago, could we have imagined a cross community Policing Board holding together in the face of huge competing political pressures, to maintain its independence and agreeing to a solution that is both equitable and workable? Ask the media? Ask the pundits? Ask if you will the much- talked about 'dogs on the street'? If we were honest the answer would be an emphatic no!

Yet over the past three months, painful as it has been, the agreed institutions are working. In our instance the new Office of the Ombudsman, the new PSNI, the new office of Oversight Commissioner and the new Policing Board and the inter-relationships between all four are working. That is not to say there are not lessons to be learned by each in working out the practicalities of those relationships. But what is clear is that the new dispensation offered under the Belfast Agreement is here to stay.

Let's for a moment appreciate how meaningful the recent Board decision is.
· Members drawn from the community with the diversity and differences that brings have stepped outside their traditional thinking modes
· Members with different, even conflicting views wanted to make the Policing Board work
· Members from a variety of backgrounds determined to find the most appropriate working solution
· Members committed to upholding the primacy of transparency and accountability
· Members willing to face up to responsibilities and make difficult decisions
· Members able to show and know the power of collective leadership
· More importantly, members who took the time to listen to and hear the pain of those who have been hurt and who have lost

I have made no distinction between political and independent board members, as it would be wrong to do so. However our solution was not a political compromise nor was the solution solely within the gift of the politicians on the Board. This was a solution to a problem that was surrounded by emotion and the full glare of the media. This was a solution that was arrived at because it was the right one and I hope people see it that way when they have had time to consider it in full.

Obviously the political members will want to spin their own interpretations following the Board's decision. That does not devalue or denigrate those decisions. It's a recognized and appreciated process, as we are all on an uncertain journey of sorts and sometimes various constituencies need some reassurances or hand holding on the way. What is disappointing is when a member, as one did this week, flagrantly insults his fellow members and the victims' families in Omagh by pronouncing on our deliberations before they had even started! This lack of sensitivity showed a marked lack of understanding of the fact we were dealing with real people for whom their grief is still both raw and recent. Obviously, for some advancing years does not bring wisdom.
Despite this one blip the rest of the Board recognized and faced up to our challenge with a maturity that proves we can measure up to policing ourselves. It is also extremely encouraging that both communities, judging by their responses, want the Board to continue going forward and frankly, want ALL parties involved.

Some of you might have read in the press yesterday how a friend described the epic challenge I faced on my appointment to the new Policing Board, suggesting I would 'need the wisdom of Solomon and the patience of Job'. Not one to miss the opportunity to trade in biblical excess, I responded, hinting that I was more a Daniel entering the Lions den with a very good chance I might end up a Jonah!

Either way I crossed the line.

Let nobody pretend we are now is some kind of policing Nirvana. My own personal decision to allow my name to go forward for the Policing Board was not and has not been easy.
We still are having difficulty adjusting to policing - to the satisfaction of both communities in Northern Ireland. That's the simple truth. It's not a conspiracy. It's not propaganda invented by politically vested interests - it is based on different experiences of policing by three communities: Nationalists, Unionists and those who serve in the Police.

Yet now we have some serious choices to make - particularly those who opposed the police service and those opposed to change within it. Real choices!

A choice of whether or not to allow the shackles of history or past experiences to prevent us from building a shared future. The hurt, loss of life and scars both physical and emotional, combined with a sense of injustice across the entire community are not so easily set aside. The Police and policing, for good or ill, are inextricably linked to our experiences by emotion, actions and history.

As for the Police they were used and they have used. They have been abused and they abused. Undoubtedly they have suffered and at times they inflicted suffering.

Yet I do not believe that all complaints and allegations against the police during the Troubles need to be reopened. We have enough open wounds in this community without picking at old sores. Those who have asked that the wider community accept that chapters are now closed in their lives should afford that right to all. Those who seek to rewrite their own histories cannot be allowed to write off the history of others. Ex RUC officers and their families understandably feel that their service to the community is undervalued airbrushed or even forgotten. They should not. Their bravery and self- sacrifice should never be forgotten. I say that as someone who, like them, has sometimes taken a difficult and unpopular road.

As we now build our new society there will be no place for those who commit crimes, in uniform or out of balaclava.

Ultimately our personal choices become self- evident: look in; look away; or look ahead. For far too long many people in our community were passive bystanders and too many more just looked the other way.

Looking ahead is the only serious option for our entire community -that's what we chose in voting 'Yes' in the Referendum. Having secured a political administration, the underlining of that administration is the assurance of an effective and accountable policing service. It is intolerably hypocritical to call for all of the institutions of the GFA to be respected while at the same time withholding support from the agents of law and order whose remit is to protect those very institutions.

To reject the Police Board is rejectionist politics no matter what way it is dressed up. In a climate of fundamental recognition of human and civil rights some political parties still ignore the rights of those people in their community who want a career as a police officer.

How can you be in Government yet disavow yourself from the responsibilities of office regarding law and order?

How can you claim to be committed to bringing the Omagh Bombers to justice and refuse to co-operate with the investigating organisation, North or South?

There is no doubt that thirty years of terrorism created a vacuum that in turn was filled by lawlessness and a form of societal break down. In the North, whether we recognized it or not the abnormal became the normal for both communities. Policing at one level failed because at many levels society failed.

But times have changed and now the community needs policing arrangements and structures that reflect those changes. The police service itself needs to reflect those changes not just through professionalism but also through its 'canteen culture'. The efforts of those responsible for the change management process in the police service has been Herculean but it clearly fell on shoulders fit for the task. The Chief Constable in particular deserves considerable praise for his leadership in this regard.

We still have problems that require total community support if policing is to be effective. Intra community strife and crime, never mind inter community tensions and sectarianism, demonstrates that sub cultures created during the so-called Troubles have no regard for people, property, politics or policing. Vigilantism, direct community action or paramilitary policing are not acceptable options in a democracy.

We should now sanction a zero tolerance assault on the leftover architecture of loyalist paramilitarism now expressing itself as pure criminality. This is a particular cancer of evil that must be dealt with if we are to truly be able to say that Northern Ireland can be policed effectively.

As a community we have a right to expect a fully politically accountable and effective police service. We have that in the new structures that have worked this week and before that in the new emblem agreed for the police service. Of course it's only through time, trial and error that those structures will assert themselves and make their presence felt.

Recently, few would have missed some elements of those new structures asserting themselves. Initially there will undoubtedly be shortcomings in the process yet the structures of oversight are necessary measures to maintain public and police confidence, accountability and transparency. Good policing has nothing to fear from oversight.

But those who stand outside of the new template have much to fear from good policing. They have no accountable alternative to the types of 'policing' that are both 'occurring' and 'not occurring' in the areas they represent have. We are ready to police ourselves just as we are able to govern ourselves and we are ready to take that argument to the heart of the communities crying out for policing.

Thank you very much