Letter: Sinn Fein and DUP coalition created mess in policing and now they must resolve it

Police numbers were discussed several times and I fully supported the leadership of the Police Federation for NI on their calls for an establishment of 7,500 regular officers. At times I was a voice in the wilderness as certain chief officers and DOJ officials tried to ‘sell blackberry communications’ as the way forward. This led to other political parties accepting a reduction towards 6,500.

I disagreed strongly on the devolution of policing and justice to the NI Executive in 2010 as I did not believe the political establishment had the ability to deal with it. The Ulster Unionist Party voted against the devolution and I proposed that particular stand and I believe in it still.

The Hillsborough Agreement was a deal between Sinn Fein and the DUP which also tried to iron out another Sinn Fein/DUP mess the St Andrew's agreement.

With the devolution of policing, neither of the parties looked at the cost implications of policing a divided society. As funding decreased there was no ability to recruit and we now have spiralling numbers.

Policing budget should have remained under the control of Westminster and the PSNI considered as a British county constabulary, with all the cost implications including additional costs now being borne by the continuous republican threat.

The devolution of justice has produced effectively a guaranteed Alliance post which is ineffective. Stormont has passed 15 primary acts in relation to justice in 15 years. One such law was Criminal Justice (Committal Reform) Act (Northern Ireland) 2021: Reformed the committal process to speed up criminal trials. Have committal processes improved? I will leave that question 'hanging'.

Recruitment was basically forced to the 'front page' by chief constable Jon Boutcher. This led to changes in budgets but not enough. The government must realise if we have ineffective policing the gaps will be filled by ‘hoods and gangsters’ as we have seen in the past.

We need an establishment of 7,500 officers now, we need a recruitment process where the ‘right person’ is selected regardless of their religious beliefs or political opinions and if necessary we cooperate with Police Scotland or a similar force to use facilities to get these officers trained and ready for the job. We wait five years we won’t have a police service at all.

Finally, certain politicians cling to the Patten report as if it were on tablets of stone handed down from on high - the one section they all overlook is part-time police service. In addition to 7,500 regular officers we should have 3,000 part time police officers. We currently have around 100 part-time officers.

I raised this continually whilst on the Policing Board and was told it was being ‘reviewed’. This major failure lies at the feet of those politicians that sat on the board and clearly didn’t understand policing and played the tunes of their political masters. The Sinn Fein/DUP coalition created this mess they need to resolve it.

Ross M Hussey, Omagh