UK, Ireland /
Polish immigrants apply to be Police officers in N Ireland [17]
From this week's New Warsaw Express.
Aconfidential report issued by the central
headquarters of the Polish police has
warned that the force could end up short of
12,000 to 16,000 officers because so many
are emigrating to the UK and Ireland,
according to the daily newspaper Dziennik.
The exact number of policemen and
women that have already moved west to
work either as officers or as security guards
in the British Isles is not as yet known, but
the demand for their services there is clear.
The Police Service of Northern Ireland is
particularly keen to recruit Poles, as are
police south of the border.
Speaking to Dziennik, Dorothy O’Leary,
spokeswoman for the Irish police, the
Garda, said, “A group of Poles have already
begun training with us and in a few months
they will become fully-fledged officers. We
are very happy to train them and make use
of the policing skills they learnt in Poland.”
The Garda are looking to employ a further
1,000 police men and women in 2007.
In Britain, Poles that have already made
the grade and donned uniforms say that
money was the major factor in persuading
them to make the move from the Polish
force. One, called Andrzej, who works for
London’s metropolitan police joked: “My
first salary was almost the same as what
I earned in Poland. The only difference was
that it was in pounds instead of zloty.”
