Mr. Alan Todd:

It is not a factor. The factor we do have concerns about is young Catholic officers policing the area where their families live because paramilitary groupings, especially dissident republicans or self-styled dissident republicans, have used that to target their family members, especially in Derry-Londonderry, because the young folk from the family have joined the police service. We do not make any distinction between the background of officers and the areas they police except where there is a concern in a town they come from. Then we tend not to send them to the town because of the problems that brings. Ironically that flies in the face of community policing because, in a perfect world, a young Gael who comes from County Tyrone, plays in the local GAA club, has gone to the local school and joins the police service would be back delivering a policing service to that community. While we have a particular emphasis and set of problems in Northern Ireland, I know that problem crops up in other jurisdictions from time to time when criminal elements target families of police officers for a range of reasons, but it is much more pronounced in Northern Ireland than elsewhere.