Minister welcomes Research on Young People and Policing in Northern Ireland
30 March 2010
The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Micheál Martin T.D., today welcomed the publication of a study on the attitudes of young people towards policing in Northern Ireland as undertaken jointly by the Belfast-based Achieve Enterprises and Institute for Conflict Research with financial support from the Reconciliation Fund of the Department of Foreign Affairs.
Minister Martin commented:
“I am pleased that my Department’s Reconciliation Fund has been able to support such a landmark study. I also welcome the fact that it has been completed with assistance from a wide range of stakeholders, including the PSNI, the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland and the Northern Ireland Policing Board, and across various locations throughout Northern Ireland.
The findings of ‘Beyond the Margins: Building Trust in Policing with Young People’ will offer an important contribution to public debate that is currently underway on the ‘hearts and minds’ aspects of policing with the community in Northern Ireland. It also provides further ideas and insights on how to ensure that relations between local young people and PSNI officers continue to develop in a positive and constructive manner, building on the solid progress that has already been made.
The study is also a particularly timely one as it emerges just ahead of the scheduled completion of devolution of policing and justice on 12 April. I endorse its objectives wholeheartedly and look forward to hearing reactions to its findings.”
ENDS
Press Office
30 March 2010
Note for Editors:
As part of the Good Friday Agreement, participants undertook to “positively examine the case for enhanced financial assistance for the work of reconciliation.” On that basis, a Government Decision in April 1999 increased funding eightfold to £2 million. The budget for this year is €3 million - this covers both the Reconciliation Fund and the Anti-Sectarianism Fund. Over 1999-2009, the two Funds have disbursed over €21 million to over 750 groups.
€30,000 was awarded to the Belfast-based Achieve Enterprises in July 2009 from the Reconciliation Fund to undertake a study, including a series of workshops, on the engagement between police and young people in Northern Ireland, with particular emphasis on those in socially deprived areas,. The work was undertaken in conjunction with the Institute for Conflict Research, an independent academic research organisation, also located in Belfast.
