The first Police Ombudsman, Nuala O'Loan, has no plans to retire to the kitchen, she tells Dan Keenan,Northern News Editor.
Nuala O'Loan is smiling more readily these days. It's not because she's leaving her post as Northern Ireland's first Police Ombudsman, she is satisfied with the last seven years and is going with something akin to reluctance. Rather, it's because she can now set aside the hallmark cool professionalism she believes is necessary to do a politically-sensitive job properly.
She admits ordinary people have commented to her about the differences between the public, on-screen woman and the private person they encounter at meetings with women's groups, church meetings and the like.
"People say to me, 'Oh you smile, you're much lighter, you're much younger'," she admits, laughing. "But when you are doing a professional job you have to be a professional person."
Turning to some of the most recent controversial cases of police mishandling, she admits convincingly there is a big reason for the constant straight face. "This stuff is not funny - the Nelsons, the McCords - they're not funny. But when you're out there [ privately] and chatting, you're relaxed. I do have a sense of humour - but it's not appropriate when you are doing some things in public." It's an image which has been maintained since 2000, when her office was established to investigate alleged police misconduct. Since then she has had run-ins with chief constables, the rank-and-file police officers' association, unionist politicians, some of the press and maybe one or two members of the old RUC Special Branch.
They have accused her of political bias (her husband is an SDLP Assembly member), religious bias (she's a Catholic), and of setting about rubbishing the reputation of the RUC which, as many unionists would see it, held the line against the IRA.
She has an answer for all the criticism. "Well, it's irritating and on occasion it irritated me quite a lot. But I always keep it in perspective by saying to myself, okay, who are these attacks coming from? An analysis of who has attacked me over the past six or seven years would identify probably six people, plus a few retired officers . . . when you put it into that context it diminishes a bit. You have to rise above it, you can't let it get in the way."
One of her ways of not letting it "get in the way" is to use the term "we" when she really means "I".
"We have produced evidence-based reports and in seven years there has been the opportunity for anyone to go to the courts and get my reports quashed by the court. The Police Federation tried it once and withdrew . . . so I rest my case." Chief among the "six people" was the last head of the RUC, Sir Ronnie Flanagan, who reacted with such fury to her devastating critique in 2001 of his force's investigation of the Omagh bombing that it looked as if O'Loan was finished before she'd really got going.
While it may seem crude to view that infamous clash in terms of winners and losers, it is widely held that Sir Ronnie came off second best. It was a rocky time so early on, but it also helped establish the solid reputation of Ombudsman's office while simultaneously underlining the need for the "culture" of policing in Northern Ireland to change.
O'Loan explains: "I remember the first occasions we decided we would go into Special Branch to look at their material and officers said to me, 'Mrs O'Loan, you can't do Special Branch,' and we pointed to the legislation and said, 'Oh yes I can'. Then officers said to me, 'But you were never expected to do this . . .'." A telling remark indeed.
"I almost think the Northern Ireland Office, people in government, shared those views. There was no preparation for the police before we started. None. The culture of police has [ since] changed absolutely.
"There are huge numbers of officers who are glad when we come in . . . but there are numbers of officers still who haven't got there yet. Good officers, officers who are doing their job, now understand that this office is a bonus and, if the Police Ombudsman says this did or didn't happen, people then tend to believe this. That's because we fought such battles to prove what we were saying." Sir Ronnie, the holder of two knighthoods, now heads up the overall police inspectorate in the UK. But O'Loan will not be drawn on the rise and rise of her former adversary.
"I can make comment about what happened in the RUC and in the PSNI during the periods which I've investigated, that's what I can comment on." Things are now different in Northern policing and she finds the [ current chief constable] Hugh Orde generation vastly different from what went before. The sexism is going - and it was always their problem anyway, not hers.
"The police force was 86 per cent male when I started in 2000 and the senior command would have been more than that, probably 99 per cent male. So I think they had a difficulty with me. But all my professional life I have worked with men. In my class at university there were 12 women and 78 men - so it's always been that way. I don't find it at all odd. But for them I think there was a problem. Not for many of Hugh Orde's generation, they don't see me as a problem at all. But there are still some out there who do. It's not too long since politicians at the Assembly were telling women to get back into the kitchen. That was part of the mentality of Northern Ireland."
SO SHE'S NOT going "back into the kitchen" then? "No, I never was very happy there," comes the wistful, almost apologetic reply.
The O'Loans lived in Africa for three years. "Declan was teaching and I was having babies."
On their return she decided she was going to be a "good mummy" (her words) and stay at home with the children. "It lasted probably three or four months before I began to get itchy feet and to realise that I needed more stimulus than was possible. I always had the feeling that I wanted to do more - it was the way I was brought up. I went to a convent school and I was brought up to do two things - if God blessed you with children, to look after them well, and the second thing was the duty to give back to society. I think that's been very much part of my conditioning. Sitting at home (a) was boring and (b) there was only so much satisfaction I could get from polishing tables and doing the washing. Now I've probably upset a huge number of people - but that's it." All of which begs the question - what next? This is hardly a candidate for a midweek nine holes of golf or membership of the Ballymena bridge circle.
There is talk of doing some work in the Basque Country which will entail learning Spanish as well as the nationalists' own language. Strangely, perhaps, this is seen as a bigger challenge than the one just ending, but there is an underlying point to it all.
"I've given this office everything I had to give and I will give as much as I can because if you can help one person being injured - that's worth doing."
If she does admit to a passion, it is this: "My passion, if I have a passion, is that we will have a peaceful society. And I believe we will only have a peaceful society if it's a society which is based on solid foundations and part of those foundations must be that everybody is subject to a review and that includes the police. And any contribution which I have made has been really aimed at trying to ensure that the law does apply equally and that where there is evidence that police officers have done something wrong that is dealt with properly and that's it.
"That is the beginning and end of it."
In her own words:
On criticism
I always keep it in perspective by saying to myself, okay, who are these attacks coming from?
On investigating
I remember we decided we would go into Special Branch and officers said to me, 'Mrs O'Loan, you can't do Special Branch'
On her legacy
Any contribution which I have made has been really aimed at trying to ensure that the law does apply equally