Ulster Unionist Justice spokesperson, Doug Beattie MC MLA said, “The words and warning from the Chief Constable over policing in Northern Ireland are stark. There has been a lot of commentary on police numbers, police resource, lack of neighbourhood policing and monitoring of sex and violent offenders. Yet what is being done about it?

“Certainly, many MLAs have raised the issue of scrutiny of the PSNI and are exacerbated by the Justice Minister's response to questions in the assembly. The stock answer ‘that is an operational matter’ may well be factual but it does not help the police get their message out to those who make the resourcing decisions.

“We know there is a tri-partite arrangement between the Department of Justice, the Policing Board and the PSNI but that has been described as a two-legged stool or a parent-child relationship. Things need to change, and the Minister must start fighting harder for the PSNI in the manner I am seeing from the Chief Constable himself.

“As the Ulster Unionist MLA on the Justice Committee, I have never shirked responsibility for the political failures of Stormont to resource the police. However, it must be noted that since Justice and Policing was devolved only one political party has held the lead on the Department of Justice. Therefore, you would expect a coherent plan for justice and policing. Yet what we have seen is the steady undermining of the PSNI over several years while an Alliance Party Minister was at the helm.

“Change is needed and that change may have to be a radical reinvention of how we manage our police service. In the meantime, elected representatives cannot wash their hands of what has happened to the PSNI.”