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FAITH
and PRACTICE … David McClurg (Secretary - Police Federation)
David
McClurg is Secretary of the Police Federation for Northern Ireland. This
is the fifth interview in a series exploring the connection between faith
and practice in the workplace.
David McClurg has been
a full-time serving officer in the RUC since 1977. He has held the post
of Secretary of the Federation for 10 years, having previously been sergeants'
representative and Vice Chairman. The Police Federation for Northern Ireland’s
remit is welfare and efficiency. Essentially it is a trade union for members
of the RUC, without many of the powers of a trade union. Police officers
can’t strike or take industrial action. His job includes negotiations on
pay, pensions and severance. We began by asking David how he became involved
in the work of the Federation.
When
I joined the Federation in 1979 I had no desire to hold office. All I wanted
to do was to represent the sergeants in the division where I was then. That
meant dealing with welfare issues that came their way, whether it was a
discipline hearing, dealing with their pension issues, making sure that
they got their entitlements, or that they were looked after when they were
off sick. In 1987 when I was vice-chairman I walked behind twelve RUC funerals
as I represented the Federation. That also entailed going to the homes,
trying to help the families, trying to ensure that financially they were
looked after, and if they needed something that it was there for them. Obviously
everything’s restricted – we couldn’t do all that we would have liked to
do for the widows, the children or the injured, but certainly we tried.
Some of the highlights included taking children away. We went with widows
and their children across to Scotland or to England. Some of the forces
across there were hosting, and we accompanied them as couriers. Just to
have got to know the children and be there for them was, to me, the highlight
of my Federation career.
It seemed clear that
welfare work among policemen in Northern Ireland was not the same as a similar
position in other parts of the United Kingdom. Did the fact that the welfare
work was taking place against the backdrop of the troubles bring a unique
dimension to the role?
There’s so much good
that has been done, I hate going into the negative side of things. But it
was a time of great pain, insecurity and fear. It wasn’t just about welfare
or a person’s economic future. It was emotional. I think the story will
be written sometime, as to what police officers had to endure. Those who
are involved in policing at the coalface, not like myself who have sat in
an office for the past ten years, are actually out there delivering the
service. The difficulties that they have encountered, the horrific scenes
that they have had to attend, the problems that they have endured in all
of that are enormous. We’re currently taking a case against the government
post traumatic stress disorder, and we’re pursuing the case on behalf of
three and a half thousand police officers. Now some say, “But surely police
officers would have expected to deal with those things,” and certainly you
expect, when you join the police, that you will have to deal with road traffic
accidents, even with murders. But nothing could prepare people for what
they actually have witnessed in Northern Ireland. I recall one night when
I was stationed in Andersonstown, going to the scenes of five murders in
one night during the provisional IRA and the official IRA feud. Those things
remain with you.
I’ve always said that
I, as a Christian, have coping mechanisms that other officers don’t have.
I have always found that being able to talk your problems through helps,
and certainly when you’ve got God to talk to that’s the best thing. I wouldn’t
want to be pompous on that point, because I have other Christian friends
who have suffered greatly through Post Traumatic Stress. They have the same
coping mechanisms, they’re probably stronger on prayer, and read their Bibles
a lot more than I have ever done. But it must be recognised that this is
an illness. We’ve had a lot of officers who have found coping mechanisms
in drink, and alcoholism became a difficulty. I was involved in the early
days in forming an Alcoholics Anonymous group within the police service.
They meet in the Federation offices. Probably no one in a Trade Union position
would ever have had to deal with issues like that. We’ve set up a private
health scheme which is the third largest in the United Kingdom. We employ
twenty-six staff on all the schemes that we run, and so while some may have
the idea that we simply negotiate pay, would that that was all we had to
do. Life would be an awful lot simpler, but it’s so diverse – and that’s
part of the great thing about the job as well. Every time you lift the phone,
it’s something different, and that’s what really attracts me.
We asked David to talk
about the values that have sustained him. Did he feel he has a sense of
vocation?
Well I’ve always felt
that Christian values underpin everything that I do. I’m always reminded
that the verse in James about pure religion is ‘to visit the fatherless
and the widows in their distress’, and that’s been a great thing that I’ve
been able to tie that in to my work. It’s certainly been a cornerstone of
the work, just being there for others. I love to be able to share with people
what God has done for me. You know, the actual value of Christianity is
that we’re called to serve. That has certainly been what’s driven me.
I’ve had a sense of
vocation in everything that I have done since I left school, whether it
was in engineering, or in the police service. I went into the police service
because I saw it as a vocation. I come from North Belfast, from the Shore
Road. I went to Dunlambert School. A lot of the guys in the BB Company I
belonged to were convicted of terrorist offences. That was the scene that
I grew up in, so I could certainly relate to the other guys who were getting
involved in terrorism. But God took me out of all of that when I became
a Christian at sixteen. I felt that, as a Christian, I wanted to contribute
to Northern Ireland. I wanted to be part of the solution and not part of
the problem. I believe that was the motivation.
When I was a part time
officer, the first case that I was involved with was in Carrickfergus. I
was called to a home where the parents had gone out to the pub and had tied
their child into the cot. So we had to break down the door, get the children
and bring them to a place of safety. I reckoned that of all the bits of
metal that I had produced, and all the machines that I had installed, nothing
had ever given me the satisfaction of just dealing with that one incident.
In everything that I’ve done I’ve had this sense of being where God wanted
me to be.
David has always been
active in local church life. He has belonged to the same congregation since
his marriage, and has fulfilled every role offered to him. We wondered if
he, who had been at the cutting edge of sectarian violence, thought the
local church has a role in addressing sectarianism in the community.
Yes I do. I think the
church has a role to play. It would be wrong to say that we have not fulfilled
our responsibility, because some churches have. There are some churches
who have been absolutely tremendous in trying to influence the society in
which they are, and to act as salt and light within their community. And
there are some who have said,” Well we’ve got our church building here,
now it is up to the people to come to us, and then we will help them.” Certainly
that is not what God intended. We haven’t got out into the community in
the main, and I think that’s where we would need to be.
At church meetings we
look at things that we would like to do I’m always saying to people, “Yes
wouldn’t it be lovely if we could do that.” But how many of us now, given
your commitments to work, are able to devote much time to it? Now so many
of the women in the church, students too, are all working. And they all
have such busy lives. Finding time is so difficult, and yet there are so
many things that need done, that we want to do. It’s just getting that balance
right. I have been thinking back to when I first came into the church. All
our deacons and elders seemed to be holding down nine to five jobs. And
a nine to five job then was just that. You did your eight hours, you went
home, and you had the rest of the time to do whatever you wanted. But now
people are expected to take work home, they’re being expected to work from
home. How we cope with that is the challenge for the church in the future.
How do we embrace the busy, responsible lives that people now live, and
still get out and work with the community, be part of the community we serve?
As a church we’ve tried over the years – we’ve now got our crèche facility,
we have parent and toddler groups, we’ve started up a youth club, and it’s
the youth club that brings in children from the local housing estate. It’s
important to get Christian values across to the children in the society
that we live in.
What about the church’s
role in reconciliation? Does the church have any responsibility in this
area? Is the church there to reconcile people to God or to have a social
role in helping to heal the divisions of the troubles in our community?
I
think the church has a very important role to play in reconciling. I don’t
want to be over-spiritual with this but I see our role in the main as reconciling
men and women to God. And if that happens, then Northern Ireland will be
transformed. People have said about religion being responsible for a lot
of the problems in Northern Ireland, and I certainly do not see that. I
have always tried to defend the fact that it is not religion. If people
were practising religion as laid down in scripture then there wouldn’t be
the conflict within our society that there is. There’s certainly a need
for people to be reconciled to God, but equally I think the church have
a responsibility beyond that as well. I hate doing it but I’m going to quote
a verse in James which says, ‘Where do wars come from? … You desire to have
and you can’t have it.’ And that attitude is a big problem in Northern Ireland.
There are people who want and want. But the verse also goes on to say about
the need to guard your tongue, and the need to be careful in what you say,
and I think the church needs to learn from that as well. As Christians we
need to be careful about what we say, that we don’t incite, or we don’t
compound the difficulties within our society. Certainly we need to work
within both communities in Northern Ireland. When you say both communities,
are there more than two communities? That brings about a whole debate in
itself within Northern Ireland. We’ve got to cross the barriers. We’ve got
to reach people. Christ’s example was to meet with publicans and sinners,
and I think we as Christians have got to reach out and be seen as befriending
people. I think that’s something we’ve missed.
We next asked David
to comment on the current change facing the police force. Had it created
insecurity? How is this affecting morale? Would it be fair to say there’s
an acceptance by and large in the police force of the need for change? Perhaps
some insecurities are as a result of the methods by which the changes are
coming about.
Part of the problem
within the police service at the moment is the total uncertainty about the
future. Take the plight of the full time reserve constables who are being
told that their jobs will go, but it depends on the security and policing
situation. We’re seeing more and more terrorist attacks, the likes of the
real IRA planting the bomb in London just the other day. So there’s the
conflict of moving towards the new future in policing, and yet the legacy
of the past is not gone. The people of Northern Ireland cannot be left defenceless
in all of that. We cannot simply remove police officers to comply with the
future changes and leave police stations open for attack. Police officers
have to be able to function and provide a policing role for all the people
of Northern Ireland. We’ve seen in recent days the attacks on Catholic people
in their homes, pipe bomb attacks and other things coming from loyalist
terrorists. That needs to be stamped out. Now you can’t do that unless you
have sufficient numbers of police officers to deal with it, and so it’s
not a question of simply keeping the numbers in the police service big.
In reality things can change but it’s got to be gradual and it’s got to
move forward. As the situation changes, so does policing.
About eighty percent
of the Patten proposals on policing came from the chief constable’s fundamental
review of policing that was published in 1995. That has been a goal, to
move into new procedures of policing. But it was predicated upon certain
scenarios; when society changed then policing changed too. We’ve recognised
the fact that we need to downsize the regular force. It’s happening. We’re
now recruiting; you’ve seen the new adverts. The job I took in 1977 bears
no comparison to the job today. Things have changed over the years.
I think what hurt police
officers in particular was the loss of emblems. People within the police
service, from whatever political or religious viewpoint, over the years
have become attached to those emblems. The name of the Royal Ulster Constabulary,
the badge with the harp and crown on it and the shamrocks, to us reflected
all society in Northern Ireland. Certainly I was extremely proud of the
Irishness and Britishness that the badge represented. The harsh way in which
the Patten report proposed their removal just simply showed no recognition
of how much the emblems meant to widows and their children, and to those
who had suffered and been injured and disabled. It said: ‘The Royal Ulster
Constabulary will not be disbanded but...’ And so the focus was on those
changes and not the eighty percent that the Chief Constable recommended.
That’s where the focus should have been. They have made us a political football.
For twenty-five years to thirty years police officers got it in the neck
from both sides. No matter what the police could do, given the polarised
nature of the society in Northern Ireland they were going to be in the middle.
But they could take solace that the government, the authorities, the vast
majority of the people in Northern Ireland recognised what they were doing
and supported them. When that support was gone the morale took a big dip.
The force will continue to serve the people of Northern Ireland, dealing
with whatever comes their way as police officers. They are still committed
to that, you know, they’re not turning a blind eye to crime. They’re still
dealing with the policing issues as they arise. But there’s the feeling
that their commitment has not been recognised.
With all these changes,
with accusations of sectarianism, injustice and cover-ups within the police,
is there a story in the police force of hurt and pain and loss that has
not been heard, and that particularly Nationalists and Republicans have
not heard, or not been willing to hear? What does that story look like?
I agree absolutely with
what you’ve said. It is a personal view but I am happy to share it. You’ve
got to accept that Republicanism is not going to think that the Royal Ulster
Constabulary was a tremendous police service. We were arresting these people
for terrorist offences; we were bringing them before the courts. But certainly
I feel that Nationalism in the form of the SDLP has abrogated their responsibility
in not coming onto the policing board or to the police authority when they
could have done so twenty, twenty-five years ago. Now I do understand the
difficulties that they had at that time, and I understand how they felt
the need to remain out of policing, but in doing that over twenty-five years
they have lost out – they never got a true feeling of what it was like to
police in Northern Ireland.
I’ve always believed
that you don’t change things by sitting outside. If things need changed
then you’ve got to be in there, you’ve got to try, because to sit on the
outside and just carp all the time is useless. I was disappointed that both
the SDLP and the trade unions didn’t take up their seats on the police authority.
They could have brought an influence. They could have realised the difficulties
of policing. I don’t want to get into controversy about plastic baton rounds,
but we have pleaded, “Come up with an alternative, give us something that
could be used to stop people throwing lethal petrol and blast bombs that
will kill police officers. Give us an alternative.” Nobody has. Even Patten
couldn’t come up with an alternative. When you think that three hundred
and two officers have been murdered over the past thirty years, eight and
a half thousand injured, the RUC has paid a tremendous price to provide
impartial policing.
Finally, how does he
see the future?
I
believe the book of Habakkuk is relevant to our situation in Northern Ireland.
Habakkuk begins by complaining to the Lord about the state of the land –
war, violence and injustice. He says he will watch to see what the Lord
answers. When the answer comes he does not like it. In the end he acknowledges
that, no matter what the situation, he can still rejoice in the Lord and
joy in the God of his salvation. The past may have been barren for us -
the fig tree may not have blossomed, but God is still the Lord and he is
still in control.
ECONI
thanks David for his willing co-operation in this interview and wishes him
success as he continues to work with the Police Federation.
Ruth
Hutchinson - Assistant Editor
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