The Police Service of Northern Ireland’s (PSNI) budget crisis leaves the organisation “dangerously” unable to deal with threats, Chief Constable Jon Boutcher has said at a meeting with British prime minister Keir Starmer.
Mr Boutcher has warned repeatedly about the budget cuts that are afflicting his organisation, but he was even more direct than usual in the wake of his meeting with Mr Starmer at the PSNI’s College in east Belfast.
Following years of restrictions from London on budgets, Northern Ireland faces “wickedly difficult challenges” across every public service front, he conceded, but the budget losses faced by the PSNI dwarf those affecting other public bodies.
The National Health Service in Northern Ireland faces serious difficulties, but its budget has grown from £3.2 billion in 2010 to £7.9 billion.
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“The police budget hasn’t gone up, even we are almost a supplementary heath service,” the chief constable told reporters at the Police College on Garnerville Road.
“What I am trying to do with every bone in my body is to explain the seriousness of the situation facing the PNSI’s (budget) numbers to everybody.”
The PSNI has about 6,300 officers, though numbers have fallen by 1,000 in recent years. Police organisations have warned that numbers could fall below 6,000 by the end of the year despite the fact it began recruiting 350 new personnel in April.
“We should be at 7,500, but we are 1,200 below that,” said the chief constable: “We have to arrest this decline, because if we don’t the consequences really could be quite dire. Already, we are dangerously beyond the point of where we should be.”
Illustrating the challenges facing the PSNI, he said police forces in Britain have seen their budget rise by a fifth, while An Garda Síochána’s budget in Dublin has risen by 23 per cent.
Describing the PSNI as “the jewel in the crown” of the Belfast Agreement in 1998, Mr Boutcher said: “We can’t lose the gains that have been made, we can’t allow the PSNI to decay.”
Police officers faced huge challenges in Belfast in this month’s anti-immigration rioting, during which a number of officers were injured, warning that officers might not have been able to handle the crisis had it continued or if it returns in coming months.
“The nature of what they faced, even for some of those seasoned officers, has taken them aback. There were some really near misses,” he said.
“I think we held our own, but you saw how challenging it was for us to deal with the disorder. We have been so far left behind, and that has just got to stop,” he said, in some of his strongest public comments to date.
He was clearly exasperated by a return of questions about claims that the PSNI officers who publicly celebrated Armagh’s All-Ireland Football Championships, following claims that they are being investigated for their actions.
He sought to draw a distinction between celebrating the match result and the driving conduct that went with it, as seen in a video taken in Camlough showing a PSNI officer holding a flag out the window while driving.
“I don’t know where this story has come from again. This is not a story. Those officers who drove the vehicle in the way that they drove will be dealt with for driving the vehicle in that way,” he said.
“I had countless calls telling me I should suspend and sack those officer and countless calls telling me that I should promote them. They will be done for the driving and the misconduct, and that’s it. This story is not a story.”
