Politicians have been warned by PSNI chief constable Simon Byrne that they need to “stop the rot” of budget cuts to protect policing in Northern Ireland.
Mr Byrne said a dramatic reduction in the number of police officers risked leaving the force “unrecognisable” compared to the service the public had come to expect and warned it would take years to rebuild the PSNI to its former strength.
In a wide-ranging interview with the PA news agency four years after he took on the top policing job in Northern Ireland, Mr Byrne also spoke about how he had faced down calls for his resignation early in his tenure and ultimately had his contract extended.
The PSNI is grappling with a £107 million shortfall following a budget set by Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris earlier this year.
Mr Byrne has previously warned of a dramatic reconfiguration of neighbourhood policing services, with fewer officers deployed on local beats, the potential grounding of one of three helicopters and warnings over the closure of some stations.
The chief constable said: “We are trying to be as candid as we can with the public about what to expect if the cuts aren’t reversed.”
He said that one of the first things he did when he took up the post in 2019 was to assess that he needed 7,500 officers to deliver the style of policing he wanted, with a strong emphasis on neighbourhood patrols.
He said: “We are now 6,600 officers, we were 7,000 this time last year.
“We assess within 12 to 18 months we may well have gone through the 6,000 threshold, by far the smallest we have been since the organisation was created and way, way back into the history of the RUC in terms of size.
“Clearly, if we have got less people on the streets investigating crime, responding to calls, policing will become unrecognisable because we are going to have to make tough choices about what we do and don’t do.”
He added: “I want to commit to still answering the phone quickly in an emergency, to turn up in an emergency quickly.
“Clearly, serious crime that happens overnight will still get detectives, will still get prioritisation, but if you are telling us about an incident that happened some while ago we probably, inevitably, unless it is really serious, we will put less resource to it.
“People are going to get frustrated that we are not as responsive, it is going to take longer to investigate crime.”
The chief constable said there was a choice facing politicians as well as the public who voted for them about whether they wanted to commit to boosting police numbers.
He said: “If you go back to the basics of policing, it is about safety and maintaining order.
“Your chance of being a victim of burglary here is very low. We currently have the lowest crime rates in the UK, which is impressive and helps people go about their daily lives largely untroubled by some of these epidemics of crime you might see in other large cities across the UK.
“My message (to the politicians) is if you don’t stop the rot, just be careful what you are going to inherit.
“We know that for every year we lose police officers, it will actually take us three years to put them back.
“You are talking about a decade of rebuilding the PSNI to what it was.”
Mr Byrne, a former deputy chief constable of Greater Manchester Police and chief constable of Cheshire Constabulary, said that despite the challenges of policing Northern Ireland, he had no regrets about taking the PSNI job.
He said: “I have been around policing a while, four decades, but by far this is the best job I have ever had.
“I don’t regret it for a minute.”
Mr Byrne faced a number of controversies during his time in Northern Ireland, including multiple calls to resign from unionist politicians.
In 2021, he faced a backlash after he published a review of policing operations in South Armagh. Former first minister Arlene Foster called for him to resign and DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson said he had lost the confidence of unionists.
Despite this, Mr Byrne recently had his five-year contract extended for another three years by the Policing Board, the PSNI’s oversight body which includes representatives of all the main political parties in Northern Ireland.
Mr Byrne said: “It was unanimous support at the Policing Board to extend my contract, which I was really pleased about.
“You go back to the time when there were calls for me to step aside, which are well rehearsed. How did I get through it? Firstly, it was about humility, giving people the time to explain and express what had gone wrong.
“I personally invested an awful lot of time visiting communities, listening to representatives and politicians, working with senior colleagues here to see how we adjust the policing style.
“We have transformed the emphasis we put on meeting, engaging and listening to the community to show we are here to understand and reflect their needs, whether they are from the protestant/unionist/loyalist community or indeed any other part of Northern Ireland.”
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