The recommendation, contained in the Patten report on the future of policing in the North, to phase out the 2,900 strong full-time RUC reserve has been on the cards since the calling of the first IRA ceasefire in 1994, but this hasn't made it any easier to accept. The full-time reserve has stood on the front line with police officers during hard times. Now we're being left out in the cold.
Nobody's even sure what the time-scale is going to be, which makes it doubly difficult.
Members of Belfast's mobile support unit No 2, based at Tennent Street RUC station, in the heart of the Shankill area, are not pleased with some of the recommendations in the report, published last week. The report is a challenge for us, certainly when you talk about changing the emblem and the name. Yes, they are emotive issues, I'd be lying if I said they weren't, but people misconstrue our feelings on that because they assume that we identify titles and symbols with culture identity and we don't. We're proud of our organisation, we're proud to serve the community, and that will continue irrespective of titles or symbols in the future. The name RUC means a lot to me.