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http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2009/0831/breaking33.htm
Mon, Aug 31, 2009
Sir Hugh Orde’s tenure as Northern Ireland Chief Constable ends today after seven years in charge.
Sir Hugh (51) who is leaving the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) to become president of the Association of Chief Police Officers, will be succeeded by current Leicestershire chief Matt Baggott.
Mr Baggott will take up the role on September 22nd, with PSNI deputy chief Judith Gillespie taking charge until then.
Sir Hugh led his officers during a time of unprecedented change for policing in Northern Ireland, overseeing a series of reforms born out of the peace process.
Under the recommendations of former Hong Kong governor Sir Chris Patten, the PSNI, which replaced the old Royal Ulster Constabulary, proactively went about recruiting more Catholic officers in a bid to make the service more representative. Almost 30 per cent of policemen and women are now Catholic, compared with 8 per cent in the RUC.
As a result of the Patten reforms, the PSNI has secured the political support of the SDLP and, more recently, Sinn Féin.
While crime rates dropped by almost a quarter during Mr Orde’s seven years at the helm, he has expressed frustration over the failure to secure convictions for series of other high-profile crimes, including the Omagh bombing.
The inability to jail anyone for the 1998 Real IRA attack in Omagh, the £26 million Northern Bank Robbery in 2004, the murder of Belfast man Robert McCartney the following year, and the break-in at police headquarters in Castlereagh in 2002 have all been cited as blots on the outgoing officer’s copybook.
And a leaked internal report on the PSNI last week also expressed concerns that the service is being choked by paperwork and needs to be freed up to fight crime.
Sir Hugh leaves with the threat from dissident republicans still at a high level following the murders of three security force members in March, including PC Steven Carroll.
As he prepared to step down last week, the Chief Constable fired a parting shot at the Stormont administration, accusing it of not doing enough to tackle segregation and division in the region. He said that, while his officers remained determined to face off the threat posed by dissident republicans, the authorities had to do more to address the underlying causes of conflict and tension in the region.
He urged the government to deliver on its Shared Future Strategy, which he claimed had slipped off the public agenda.
“There are real issues, social issues that need to be addressed by all communities and all institutions if we are to move on and understand why people just still don’t get on in the routine of their daily lives, why we still have segregated communities, why we still have peace walls,” he said.
“Those are questions that are far wider than policing that seem to be a bit on the back burner, so that needs to move on.”
PA
© 2009 irishtimes.com
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2009/0831/1224253509841.html
TOM CLONAN
Mon, Aug 31, 2009
The Defence Forces’ plans to invade Northern Ireland, which were drawn up 40 years ago as violence there erupted, display a mixture of enthusiasm and naivety that would have provoked massive retaliatory action from the British . . . had they been implemented
FORTY YEARS ago, in August and September of 1969, intense rioting and civil unrest prevailed throughout Northern Ireland.
As the violence reached fever pitch the then taoiseach, Jack Lynch, made a televised speech to the nation on RTÉ in which he used the now immortal and much misquoted phrase: “We will not stand by”.
For almost 40 years, historians and political pundits have argued over the precise meaning of this provocative – and yet somewhat ambiguous phrase. Had Jack Lynch intended to convey the possibility of an Irish Army invasion of Northern Ireland – ostensibly to protect nationalists from sectarian attacks?
Unlikely as it may seem today, the Irish Army did indeed draw up secret plans to invade the six counties.
In a secret Irish Army document, drawn up in September 1969 and entitled Interim Report of Planning Board on Northern Ireland Operations – the Irish military authorities explicitly outlined their concept for “feasible” military operations within the six counties.
In its opening paragraphs, the military document – seen by The Irish Times – predicts with considerable understatement that “all situations visualised [in this document] assume that military action would be taken unilaterally by the Defence Forces and would meet with hostility from Northern Ireland Security Forces”.
In other words, due to the prospect of confronting far superior forces and being exposed to “the threat of retaliatory punitive military action by UK forces on the Republic”, Irish military operations would of necessity commence unannounced – with no formal declaration of war.
The document sets out various attack scenarios whereby the Irish general staff would seek to exploit the element of surprise to launch both covert unconventional or guerrilla-style operations against the British authorities, along with conventional infantry attacks on Derry and Newry.
Before elaborating in detail on the precise nature of such offensive operations within Northern Ireland, the authors of this secret document provide a health warning of sorts to their political masters.
At paragraph 4, a statement is made that “The Defence Forces have no capability of embarking on unilateral military operation of any kind . . . therefore any operations undertaken against Northern Ireland would be militarily unsound”.
However, despite this caveat, the document goes on to outline “accepting the implications of subparagraph 4a . . . conventional military operations on a small scale up to a maximum of company level and unconventional operations could be undertaken by the Defence Forces” – subject to such action being of short duration.
At paragraph 4, sub-paragraph g of this extraordinary document, the Irish Army goes on to identify the towns of “Derry, Strabane, Enniskillen and Newry” as most suitable for infantry operations “by virtue of their proximity to the Border” – and also by virtue of their predominantly nationalist demographics.
At sub-paragraph h, the Irish military authorities identify the BBC TV studios in Belfast as a primary target for destruction along with “Belfast airport, docks and main industries . . . located in the northeast corner”. The document observes that due to their “distance from the Border . . . any military operations against these (targets) should preferably be of the unconventional type”.
The remainder of the 18 pages of secret documents dealing with “Northern Ireland Operations” and “Planning for and conduct of Border operations”, also seen by The Irish Times , deal with the steps necessary for the execution of specific – albeit limited – military operations against Newry, Derry and major infrastructural targets in Belfast.
The document outlines at paragraph 23b the requirement for four infantry brigades to be brought up to strength and trained intensively to “operate in company groups” against urban targets – in other words, company-sized attacks on RUC, B Special and British Army elements in Derry and Newry.
At paragraph 23c the document also outlines the requirement for three motorised cavalry squadrons to be fully equipped and brought up to strength – presumably for armoured reconnaissance and lightning strikes on Northern Ireland security forces located in urban areas such as Derry and Newry.
At paragraph 23d, the document recommends the establishment of “a Special Forces Unit, prepared for employment, primarily on unconventional operations”.
At the time that this document was drafted, in September 1969, the Irish Army was seriously under-strength, with a total of 8,113 personnel. While individual troops were relatively well armed with FN 7.62 automatic rifles – purchased for service in the Congo – the Irish Army was severely lacking in transport and other support elements necessary for combat operations, however limited in scale.
At one point in the military document, it is suggested that “CIÉ buses” would have to be commandeered to get Irish troops into action against Border targets. The Irish did have some artillery support – mainly 120mm mortars and second World War vintage 25-pound field guns.
However, the Irish had little or no air support – the Air Corps possessed approximately a half dozen serviceable De Havilland Vampire jets in the autumn of 1969. These aircraft would have been of little use against RAF Phantom and Harrier jets, stationed at that time within a very short flight time from Northern Irish air space.
In terms of ground forces, in September 1969, the British army presence in Northern Ireland was already on high alert and consisted of almost 3,000 heavily armed troops of the 2nd Queens Regiment, the Royal Regiment of Wales and the Prince of Wales’s Own Regiment based in Belfast, Omagh and Derry. These units had – unlike their Irish counterparts – considerable experience and training in conventional large-scale combat tactics as part of Nato’s UK 16 Para Brigade.
Many of these units had just recently rotated to Northern Ireland following deployment as part of Europe’s Nato Northern Flank Mission.
Armed with Humber armoured personnel carriers – equipped with Rolls Royce six- cylinder engines – along with Saracen armoured fighting vehicles and overwhelming air superiority, the British army presence in Northern Ireland in the autumn of 1969 would have been more than capable of dealing decisively with any Irish Army incursion north of the Border.
Irrespective of the element of surprise, the Irish Army would have been subject to a massive British counter-attack – probably within hours of their initial incursion. Irish casualties would have been high as the British would have sought to swiftly and indiscriminately end the Republic’s unilateral military intervention – which would have had the potential to completely destabilise Northern Ireland, leading perhaps to the type of sectarian violence and ethnic cleansing seen in central Europe just two decades later.
In the final paragraph of the document, the Irish military authorities warn of the doomsday scenario that the aptly named Operation Armageddon might bring about for the Irish Republic – if launched by Lynch’s government.
“Sustained operations of this nature would demand the total commitment of the State . . . Should the operation miscarry, the consequences could be very grave for the State and the people it is intended to assist.”
Luckily for the Irish Republic – and the people of Northern Ireland – Lynch’s declaration not to stand by never translated into a declaration of war.
© 2009 The Irish Times
http://www.examiner.ie/ireland/former-ira-member-reveals-ministers-role-in-arms-plot-99815.html
By Scott Millar
Monday, August 31, 2009
AN IRA member has broken his silence to confirm that Irish government ministers organised the delivery of large amounts of weaponry to republicans at the outbreak of the Troubles.
Former leading Official IRA member Bobby McKnight, 71, breaks his 40-year silence in a new book on the organisation published today.
Belfast man McKnight, who in 1969 was a member of the IRA command staff, states that along with another man he drove to Dublin Airport in September 1969. There he met then minister for finance Charles Haughey’s brother, Jock, and took delivery of several cases of weaponry, which filled his pickup truck, these were then transported to IRA members in Dublin.
In The Lost Revolution – The Story of the Official IRA and the Workers Party, written by Irish Examiner journalist Scott Millar and historian Brian Hanley, McKnight confirms his role in the arms plot which resulted in the major political crisis of the 1970 Arms Trial.
He is the first persondirectly involved in the transportation of arms shipments organised by government ministers to the IRA to confirm the existence of the plot.
McKnight confirms there were contacts between the IRA and Fianna Fáil representatives even prior to the outbreak of widescale violence in Northern Ireland in August 1969.
The book also reveals the extent of government fears about a resurgent IRA south of the border and plans to split the organisation along left/right lines, a strategy which aided the creation of the Provisional IRA.
A Department of Justice cabinet memo, dated March 18, 1969, whose contents are revealed for the first time, states: "In different parts of the country units of the IRA (and Sinn Féin) are uneasy about the new left-wing policy of their leadership and about theviolent methods that are being adopted in the destruction of private property.
"Their uneasiness needs to be brought to the surface in some way with a consequent fragmentation of the organisation. It is suggested by the Department of Justice that the Government should promote an active political campaign in that regard."
The memo indicates that Jack Lynch’s cabinet was discussing plans to split the IRA at least five months prior to the outbreak of major violence, and the death of civilians, in the North.
Within nine months the IRA had split into socialist Official and more traditional Provisional factions.
This story appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Monday, August 31, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2009/08/31/business/business-uk-ireland-eu-workers.html
DUBLIN (Reuters) - The Unite trade union urged Irish workers on Monday to reject the European Union's Lisbon reform treaty in an October referendum, saying the pact would leave them exposed to pay cuts, job losses and unfair treatment.
Last year Ireland rejected the treaty designed to streamline EU decision-making, but will vote again on October 2 after winning concessions on key Irish policy areas including military neutrality and retaining an EU commissioner.
Unite, which ranks itself the biggest union in Britain and Ireland's second, lent its premises earlier this month for the launch of the "Vote No to Lisbon" campaign led by the Socialist Party and nationalist Sinn Fein but it was not then formally listed as a member.
On Monday Unite issued a statement urging its 60,000 members in the Republic of Ireland and other trade union members to vote "No" on October 2, saying the additional guarantees Ireland had received on workers' rights were unsatisfactory.
"Irish workers are alone in Europe as the only ones whose right to fair pay and employment security are considered by their government as obstacles to economic recovery," Unite Irish Regional Secretary Jimmy Kelly said, adding that backing the Lisbon treaty would "enshrine" Irish workers' problems.
The latest opinion polls show a majority now plan to vote "Yes" -- many convinced by the need for EU support in Ireland's worst downturn on record -- but last year's late swing to a 'No' majority shows opinion could still go the other way.
Companies worried about the fate of the Irish economy such as chipmaker Intel and budget airline Ryanair have been at the forefront of the "Yes" campaign, but opponents have also focused on the economy.
"We earned the right to go back to the EU and to clarify and secure elements of the workings of the Union that are essential to get right," Unite said.
(Reporting by Andras Gergely)
http://dailygleaner.canadaeast.com/canadaworld/article/776823
By GLEN JOHNSON
The Associated Press
BOSTON - President Barack Obama led the United States on Saturday in mourning and remembering "the greatest legislator of our time," celebrating the legacy of Edward M. Kennedy as a senator for nearly a half-century and leader of America's most famous family during tragedy and triumph.
Delivering an emotional, simple eulogy for Kennedy that capped a two-hour Roman Catholic funeral Mass, Obama employed humour, his own experiences and timeless anecdotes to memorialize the senator, who died Tuesday at 77 after battling brain cancer for more than a year.
The U.S. may have viewed him as "heir to a weighty legacy," Obama said, but he was playfully known by the youngest Kennedys less grandly: as the big cheese, "The Grand Fromage."
"Ted Kennedy's life's work was not to champion the causes of those with wealth or power or special connections," Obama said. "It was to give a voice to those who were not heard, to add a rung to the ladder of opportunity, to make real the dream of our founding."
Obama called Kennedy "the lion of the United States Senate" and said that "though it is Teddy's historic body of achievements that we will remember, it is his giving heart that we will miss."
The service drew to Our Lady of Perpetual Help Basilica three of the four living former presidents, dozens of Kennedy relatives, pews full of current and former members of Congress and many others - a crowd of about 1,500 affected by the senator in ways large and small. No fewer than seven priests, 11 pallbearers and 29 honorary pallbearers took part. Mournful performances came from tenor Placido Domingo and cellist Yo-Yo Ma.
His funeral motorcade was later driven past flags lowered to half-staff in his memory at the U.S. Capitol in Washington.
"Go now, to your place of rest. And meet the Lord, your God," said the Rev. Daniel Coughlin, the House chaplain, as the motorcade came to a brief stop before thousands of mourners gathered on the Capitol steps and grounds.
A few miles away, on the same hillside at Arlington National Cemetery where his brothers lie, an oak cross painted white marked the head of a grave, and a flat marble footstone bore the simple inscription, "Edward Moore Kennedy 1932-2009."
Earlier, Kennedy's flag-draped casket - carried by a military honour guard of eight - was wrapped tightly in plastic to guard against a steady rain in Boston as it was removed from his brother's presidential library and placed in a hearse for the drive to the church.
His widow, Victoria, closed her eyes slowly and appeared to choke back tears as she watched under cover of an umbrella. The family had held a brief and private prayer service at the library in the morning.
The motorcade route was lined with people, some holding "Kennedy-Thanks" signs and one person waving a lone red heart.
"We welcome the body of our friend," said a priest as the casket entered the church.
Under the soaring dome and saint-covered arches of the basilica, a church Kennedy had frequented almost daily while his daughter, Kara, battled cancer at a nearby hospital, over a dozen Kennedy family members accompanied the casket - now covered by a white cloth - down the church aisle, each straining to touch it.
Kara Kennedy was the first family member to speak at the service, reading Psalm 72. Ten of Kennedy's grandchildren, nieces and nephews offered a set of brief prayers.
Ted Kennedy Jr., the eldest son, said, "He was an Irishman and a proud member of the Democratic party."
He told a story from shortly after he lost a leg to cancer at age 12, when his father helped him up a snow-covered hill with an arm around his waist and words of encouragement. "There's nothing you can't do," he said his father told him. Choking back tears, Kennedy Jr. said: "My father taught me that even our most profound losses are survivable."
He and Rep. Patrick Kennedy, a Rhode Island congressman, Kennedy's other son, cried during a long embrace in between their two addresses.
The unseasonable cold outdoors, the result of tropical storm Danny's path up the Eastern seaboard, was not felt inside the church, which grew warm from the packed crowd. The church's stained-glass windows were opened, and rain could be heard beating down on the cantilevered ceiling and metal gutters.
The invitation-only service included singer Tony Bennett, actor Jack Nicholson and Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, once an aide to Kennedy.
Reflecting Kennedy's role as a peacemaker in Northern Ireland was a delegation from the troubled province, including Gerry Adams, leader of the Irish republican party Sinn Fein.
Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen and Sarah Brown, wife of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, also attended.
http://www.independent.ie/national-news/psni-steps-up-patrols-against-real-ira-threat-1873263.html
By Alan Murray
Sunday August 30 2009
The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) is increasing helicopter patrols over south Armagh in an effort to combat the growing threat from dissident republican groups and to protect its officers.
A show of strength at an illegal roadblock in Meigh, just outside Newry, Co Down, last Friday night has heightened concerns that police officers will be killed in a rocket attack or in heavy machine-gun fire by Real IRA elements.
The PSNI confirmed yesterday that it has hired a second helicopter to assist in its efforts to combat dissident republicans who are posing an increasing threat, the outgoing Chief Constable Hugh Orde has admitted.
Without British Army support his officers are virtually powerless to take on heavily armed terrorists and they retreated from the small village of Meigh last Friday night after a patrol car crew spotted the masked and heavily armed Real IRA members stopping cars just about 200 yards away.
The decision to withdraw has both angered and alarmed the North's Policing Board, which is driving the policy of Community Policing to the top of its agenda, with the full support of Sinn Fein and the SDLP.
It emerged last week that while officers who witnessed the Real IRA stunt, as Hugh Orde described it, had access to rifles in their vehicles, not all had been trained to use the weapons.
There is now a perception in Unionist circles that South Armagh has again become a no-go area for the police.
A victims' campaigner who lives in South Armagh, Willie Frazer, said the Meigh incident underlined the growing confidence of the Real IRA in the area and the limited security presence.
Mr Frazer, who was told on Thursday that his application to hold a licensed firearm to protect himself had been refused, said that people living in the area now felt more vulnerable following the Meigh incident.
"They won't allow me to have a gun to defend myself but they're telling me that they can't protect me and they can't even protect their own officers because they've no back-up available.
"What a joke security situation this is," he said.
Local people said the Real IRA group in Meigh carried a rocket launcher and rifles and may have had a high-powered machine gun stolen from an IRA arms dump in 1994.
There is particular concern that the terror group has a Russian belt-fed 12.7mm machine gun, a DShK, two of which were used in the downing of a British army helicopter in the area in 1990.
The leaflets handed out by the Real IRA group warned motorists not to pass on information to the police.
Anyone who comes to their attention regarding the passing on of information to the PSNI, gardai, MI5 or Sinn Fein will be dealt with in the appropriate manner, it warned.
- Alan Murray
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/uda-split-widens-as-general-visits-14474387.html
By Brian Rowan
Monday, 31 August 2009
Senior UDA leaders are to hold separate meetings with decommissioning general John de Chastelain, in a move described by one loyalist as further evidence of a split within the paramilitary organisation.
The group’s inner council leaders from Belfast will meet the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning today, but the north Antrim/Londonderry brigadier Billy McFarland will not be with them. He plans his own talks with the general.
“This is a split,” a senior paramilitary figure admitted.
It is understood the UDA found out about the McFarland talks from a source outside the organisation. Up to this point, loyalists have been attempting to paper over cracks.
Suggestions of a split first emerged after a statement from the UDA-linked Ulster Political Research Group in north Antrim/ Londonderry, which withdrew support for the police and the political institutions.
And since then sources inside and outside the organisation have been questioning McFarland’s future commitment to the decommissioning process.
General de Chastelain arrived in Ireland yesterday and is due to begin a series of meetings today before making a report to the British and Irish governments.
That is expected later this week — and will detail progress on loyalist decommissioning by the UDA, UVF and linked Red Hand Commando. There are no plans for the general and the other commissioners — Andrew Sens and Brigadier Tauno Nieminen — to speak publicly.
But key to their report will be the assessment of the likely next steps by the UDA.
Last week, Secretary of State Shaun Woodward told this newspaper that February 2010 is the final deadline for weapons to be put beyond use.
Asked last night about McFarland’s decision to meet General de Chastelain, a loyalist source said: “It’s rather complicated.”
It was then he revealed the plan for separate meetings with the IICD — one involving the Belfast leadership of the UDA and the other McFarland’s brigade.
He added McFarland had not expected the UDA to move to put weapons beyond use. “He just didn’t think this was going to happen,” the source said.
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinion/viewpoint/viewpoint-a-crucial-week-in-the-shift-to-normality-14474655.html
Monday, 31 August 2009
This week will mark a decisive phase in the loyalist decommissioning process, and the report by General de Chastelain and his colleagues will determine whether or not this vexed issue will finally be settled.
Members of the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning (IICD) will be in Ireland this week and their report will assess the progress made by the loyalists during the past six months.
It will also determine the future of the decommissioning process which is scheduled to run until February next. Significantly, however, the Secretary of State Shaun Woodward has underlined in no uncertain manner that this will be the final deadline.
The loyalist decommissioning has been on the agenda for a long time, and in the opinion of many people, for far too long. Earlier this year the Secretary of State, on the advice of the IICD, extended the deadline because a significant development within loyalist ranks seemed likely.
This is now pay-off time and the IICD report is likely to confirm major decommissioning by the UVF and the Red Hand Commando, as intimated earlier this year, and also a significant start by the UDA.
The de Chastelain group will also report on the breakaway UDA faction which is based in south-east Antrim, and there is also some unease about the attitude of senior UDA figures in the North Antrim/ Londonderry area.
Decommissioning is not the exact or neat process which some people might expect. It involves protracted discussions and a need to bring the right people along the right paths at the same time. The loyalists in general have been given long enough to make up their minds, and the public has already lost patience over the long delay.
However, credit must be given to all those who have persuaded and cajoled the loyalists to move towards decommissioning. As the Secretary of State pointed out, General de Chastelain has not sought personal glory but, with his colleagues, he has made a significant contribution to peace in Northern Ireland, and he deserves all our thanks.
While it appears that the loyalists are at last moving under the decommissioning umbrella, there is the continuing worry about dissidents and breakaway groups on both sides who still believe that violence pays. The danger from republican dissidents was demonstrated only too clearly earlier this year by the murder of two soldiers and a policeman, but the widespread revulsion at such barbarity underlined the fact that there is no significant support for those who resort to violence.
After all that has happened during the past decades it is hard to believe that there are still people who choose the bomb and the bullet as a way of promoting their cause. Time and again violence has been rejected by the politicians and the people, but still there is a fanatic and brutal minority who believe wrongly that violence is the ultimate power.
The only way to combat such a disastrous philosophy is to maintain stringent security measures which are backed resolutely by the vast majority of people on both sides, who know that there can be no going back to the past. This is an important week for Northern Ireland, and for General de Chastelain and his colleagues. This is the time to close the door firmly on violence from all sides. The alternative to this is simply unthinkable.
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinion/columnists/ed-curran/ed-curran--psni-is-out-of-step-with-the-need-for-more-street-patrols-14474653.html
Monday, 31 August 2009
What are we to make of the Police Service of Northern Ireland? Not a lot by its own admission.
The PSNI deserves respect and sympathy in so far as it is the target for continued dissident terrorist attack. However, with regard to normal day to day policing it does not rate highly.
We are told officers spend 61% of their time on administrative tasks. The PSNI has lost sight of the public’s policing requirements. Officers are not deployed where they are needed. They have “insufficient information” on the factors causing crime. There is little evidence of a clear crime prevention strategy.
A desk-bound, nine-to-five culture has taken hold to the extent that one in two crimes are not even reported to the PSNI. The public has little faith that crimes will be properly investigated and offenders such as burglars brought to justice. And by the way, and not apparently highlighted in the leaked report to the media, we also know the PSNI has an unduly high record of absenteeism |and illness.
It’s not often I agree with Alex Maskey. He asserts that this report is nothing new and that it only serves to confirm what people have suspected for some time. The fundamental issue is the management of the PSNI and the police’s inability to link into the community it is supposed to serve.
By its own admission, the PSNI is not serving us well. It is too remote and few of us have any connection with its officers. We may see plenty of traffic branch officers on our highways and byways, but the police in general are not interacting with the public.
Surprisingly, after all the fundamental police reforms of recent years, senior officers admit much more needs to be done. If, after years of a change of strategy, |starting with the Patten Report, the PSNI is now found to be so wanting, where does blame rest?
We were led to believe that the reforms of recent years swept much deadwood away and that we now have a streamlined modern respected police service second to none.
Now we learn that the PSNI is incompetent. It is nowhere near as efficient as other police services in Britain in detecting crime and putting perpetrators behind bars. We have more police officers per head of the population than other areas, but less crime to face.
Upon whose shoulders does blame rest? Firstly the PSNI senior management, from Sir Hugh Orde down. They may have bared their souls in this hard-hitting report but should they not have foreseen problems and addressed them before now? We are now told there will be more officers out and about within months. That remains to be seen. It is difficult to see how such a deskbound organisation can be turned around so swiftly. Also, reducing the PSNI by another 500 officers seems an odd way to increase its presence on our streets.
The PSNI hierarchy is extraordinarily well-paid. The new Chief Constable will be earning almost as much as the Prime Minister. Mr Matt Baggott won his post on the strength of his strategy for community policing. No previous Chief Constable has come to his job with such united political backing. However, we know now that Mr Baggott will have his work cut out for him, to deliver on the promises he made to the interviewing panel.
Where has the Policing Board of Northern Ireland been all these years? In their inspections of policing procedures why were Board members not more alert to the failings of the police service as chronicled in the leaked report?
What are we to make now of the extensive reforms which have taken place since the PSNI was re-created out of the old RUC in 2001? Why after all the microscopic probes into the old RUC and the new PSNI are we finding out only now that so much is still wrong?
Our society is also to blame. Whether we are talking about the workload of staff in the health service or police officers, the fear of litigation has created a huge bureaucracy. The pursuit of criminals is burdened down by wasteful form-filling administration. We need to have more confidence in the police service to enable officers to have a free hand to do what they are paid to do.
None of us can overlook the unique risks facing police officers in this country as evidenced by ongoing dissident republican activity. That said, progress in policing cannot be inhibited by the threat of terror. Regrettably, the Police Service of Northern Ireland has a long way to go.
Why was there no live television coverage of last Thursday’s One Day cricket international at Stormont? This was the biggest day of the year for Irish cricket fans, and a major sporting occasion for Northern Ireland.
The match was a sell-out at Stormont, despite the inclement weather. We had a rare opportunity to see Ireland take on the Ashes-winning England side and fail only narrowly to win.
I’m told Sky Sport which has the rights to cover cricket were prepared to step aside and allow BBC Northern Ireland to broadcast the match. However, the BBC declined the approach from Irish cricket on grounds of cost.
A day after the momentous encounter at Stormont, Scotland took on Australia in another one day international. And would you believe it, BBC Scotland provided full live coverage. I would have thought a case of BBC Northern Ireland caught out in the slips or, worse still, leg before wicket.
Updated: 11/5/2009
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