Nearly one in eight of applicants to the PSNI is Polish. According to the police, 968 out of more than 7,700 applicants in the latest recruitment drive are from Poland. They are thought to be attracted by the PSNI starting salary of about £22,000 (€33,150) which is high by Polish standards.
The surge in applications follows a recruitment drive which included a press advertising campaign in Warsaw. Those chosen to train for the police service will join officers on patrol in Northern Ireland with Brazilian, Canadian, Iranian, French, South African and New Zealand roots. Others come from the US, Australia, Britain, Singapore and Germany. A number also come from the Republic.
Under current PSNI recruitment policy aimed at achieving a religious balance, applicants to the service must state if they are Catholic, Protestant or "Other" and declare their religious background. The PSNI said last night this rule applied to all applicants, and not just those from Northern Ireland.
There are currently no Polish officers in the service but it is understood one is due to join the PSNI on secondment later this month.
Meanwhile, in response to the growing numbers of workers from non-English speaking countries the Ulster Bank has announced it is recruiting the first of a team of multilingual employees. The bank officials will deal specifically with customers from other countries in their own language where needed.
The bank has already printed promotional material and application forms in Polish, Chinese, Lithuanian and Portuguese.
The first "dedicated customer service representative" will take up a post in Dungannon, Co Tyrone, where there is a sizeable Portuguese community, many of which work in local agriculture.
Aleksandra Papeskina who, as well as her native Lithuanian also speaks Russian, English and some Polish, has been selected to work in the Dungannon branch full-time.
Ulster Bank's Richard Donnan said: "Our growing migrant worker population is playing an ever-more important role in Northern Ireland's economy and society and we are committed to ensuring that they can benefit from our current account banking in the same way as other customers."