Concur with merseysider. I can probably guess, but what was their problem with it earlier?
<Totally uninformed conjecture follows>
Perhaps they werent willing to sign on until the policy of having x number of catholics in the police force filtered through to the actual number on the street...
go ahead and shoot that down, someone..please?
More to do with the fact that 1) most republicans saw the PSNI (New police force) as the exact same as the old RUC; which as you can imagine is not highly popular among Catholics (esp. Working-class) in the north
True. It is now officially recognised, following the recent O'Loan report, that the RUC colluded with loyalist paramilitaries for years. This was long held as obvious in Republican communities and so there has always been significant mistrust for the police there.
and 2) most of the Sinn Fein leadership are stubborn arseholes. Though catholics in the force was an undoubted factor aswell.
Certainly some of them are, but hey, the same goes for the leadership of many political parties in Ireland and elsewhere. Take-up by Catholics to the PSNI has not been great, indeed IIRC, applications from immigrant Polish Catholics is greater than that from the local Catholic population. Given the mistrust mentioned previously, there is a certain stigmatisation of Catholics who join the force, though this has lessened in recent years.
It's good news for the obvious reasons, though it's also bad news as it may increase the chances of Sinn Fein doing very well at the next election and gets them one step closer to respectibility.
According to yesterday's
RedC/Sunday Business Post poll 79% of voters approve of the party endorsing the PSNI. 56% of those questioned said they would be more likely to vote for the party if it did so.
