CHIEF CONSTABLE Matt Baggott has insisted he has the resources to counter the dissident republican threat.
However, the Police Federation, which represents rank and file officers, has claimed there was a need for a “step change” in the security response to the violence threatened by dissident groups which is now at a 12-year high.
Chairman Terry Spence said recent attacks, including bombings in Newtownhamilton in south Armagh, near the MI5 base in Holywood, Co Down and at Newry courthouse “reflect a growing confidence and competence among dissident republicans”.
He added: “They are aware that the police are not responding sufficiently robustly to deter them”.
He warned that without a change in police tactics “we will gradually sleepwalk into a renewal of a full-blown terrorist campaign”.
Mr Spence has written to Ministers in the Stormont Executive warning: “The federation believes that Chief Constable Matt Baggott . . . is seriously constrained by lack of resources, a situation which seems to be the result of an inherited determination to portray Northern Ireland as a ‘normalised’ society despite the evidence to the contrary.”
He claims that this year, there have been 18 mortar and bomb attacks, 18 shooting incidents and that 24 officers’ families have been moved due to intimidation.
The Newtownhamilton bombing showed how ineffective the community’s protection measures were, he said.
However Mr Baggott, who yesterday briefed the Policing Board on the subject, said the current number of officers on the streets was at its highest since 2007.
“There are issues of police officer safety if we don’t take those seriously we may again compromise the public and we have to be very careful that we are not being lured into something more destructive,” he added.
Responding to criticism of the speed of the police response to the bombing last week at the PSNI station in Newtownhamilton, Mr Baggott said: “Clearly we regret that we were not there earlier. We will be working with our communities to see how we can improve our police presence and that confidence.”