Ulster Unionist Justice spokesperson Doug Beattie MC MLA has hit back at Justice Minister Naomi Long following her appearance on BBC’s The Nolan Show, where she called on other departments to return funding allocated away from justice.

Doug Beattie MC MLA said:

“What we saw in the BBC NI programme ‘Peelers – The PSNI for Real’ is an unfiltered and microscopic look at operational policing in Northern Ireland through the lens of police officers and the presenter, Stephen Nolan. It shows the harsh realities of policing and what our police officers face on a day-to-day basis. Something many are not aware of, with even some politicians with little understanding of the realities of policing. Hiding behind a ministerial response that ‘that’s an operational matter’ has not helped the situation; it has instead hidden it.

“Therefore, the question needs to be asked: why now? Why have we let our police service be degraded to such a level before we finally start to show society the importance of policing and the critical work the PSNI does to keep us safe?  I have long argued that we need to fight harder for the police service to ensure they have the resources they need so they can do the job we want of them.  When the Chief Constable went above the Justice Minister’s head, to appeal directly to Westminster and the Prime Minister to ask for more funding, the alarm bells should have been sounded.

“It was clear at that time that successive Justice Ministers had not seen the writing on the wall and had not been fighting for the police; now, when we have reached a critical point, they stand and complain that they haven’t been given the funding they require. Instead of looking at how they can deal with the lack of resource through both Westminster and internal savings, they are instead engaged in sucking their teeth and blaming other departments who did fight for the resource they needed.

“The PSNI deals with the legacy of the past, yet they are not funded for it. Why is this not continuously in the headlines? The same can be said for funding to police the only land frontier in the UK where terrorism and organised crime move across the border daily, yet there is no extra funding to police this.

“Internally, we have the Department of Justice have moved into a ‘steady state jogging’ approach. They are not taking the difficult decisions that need to be taken regarding the Youth Justice System, legal aid, the separated prison regime, and how Police Community Safety Partnerships (PCSPs) are funded. The argument that money went to health, and they want it back is a lazy trope with real life outcomes.  So, what hospital does the Minister want to close, what service do they want cut, as the Alliance Party asks for more from the health service, how can they then ask that money be taken from it?

“The Alliance Party has been responsible for the Department for Justice since its inception in Northern Ireland, apart from around six months that were under the eye of Claire Sugden. They have allowed it to get to the state it is in. They are the party that has not fought hard enough for policing or for justice in general. However, there are solutions coming to the fore, and they are in partnerships with other departments.

“The ‘Right Care Right Person’ initiative will see health taking on issues that were historically done by the police, such as mental health interventions. The police should never have been responsible for many of the calls for assistance that were health issues. Yet the Justice Department left it to the police to come up with a plan to deal with this after over a decade of police officers acting as social workers. The cooperation between the Justice Department and Health Department on youth justice issues is something positive to shout about.  It’s about pooling and sharing budgets for better outcomes.  It’s not about blaming others for your own failings.”