Debate contribution: Ramming of Police Vehicles: South Armagh

Debate contribution by Mr Mark Durkan on 22 April 2024.

MLA

Mr Mark Durkan

Party at the time

Social Democratic and Labour Party

Date

22 April 2024

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Ramming of Police Vehicles: South Armagh

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4484168

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I welcome the motion. It gives us the opportunity to discuss the massively important issue of the policing budget and the need to ensure that it is fair and ambitious. The motion also gives us an opportunity to condemn attacks on police and to put on record our support for, and solidarity with, those officers who have been injured and their colleagues, who risk attack, assault, injury and even worse every single day and night. I declare an interest as a member of the Policing Board. My position on that board has given me a greater insight into the many and massive challenges facing the PSNI, financially and operationally. I absolutely support the motion's call for the Minister of Justice to prioritise a visible and effective Police Service but feel that the ask should be of the Executive. Other Ministers, not just the Justice Minister, need to understand the importance of an adequately resourced Police Service to our society and to measure up to the declared words of the motion, and, indeed, to go beyond its words. The motion and the motion as amended, as it will be, are limited in ambition, focusing on the next financial year, without reference to the deeper structural funding deficits facing the PSNI. We tabled an amendment seeking, as a matter of further priority, to begin to address the structural underfunding of the PSNI that has arisen over time and has also been detailed by the Chief Constable on more than one occasion. What does that underfunding look like? The Office for National Statistics (ONS) says that, since 2010, PSNI funding has increased in real terms by 3%. Over the same time, health funding has increased by 89% and education funding by 23%. The first nine points on the pay scale for new PSNI officers, in a comparison with new police entrants across these islands, are between £2,000 and £10,000 per annum. The in-year PSNI deficit is £130 million, which could rise to £300 million with data leak and holiday pay claims. We then look at an issue that Mike Nesbitt previously raised: the impact of the mental health crisis on the PSNI and how stretched it has become in responding to help vulnerable people — protect people — rather than to fight crime.

The impact of those pressures is felt by not just the police but the public. Police numbers fall way short of where they should be, recruitment has been an issue for some time, and retention is becoming more of an issue. Policing is extremely challenging at the best of times, but fighting crime and protecting people become a lot more difficult when resources are stretched so thin. An impact on performance is inevitable, and that is manna from heaven for those who do not want an effective police service: criminals and paramilitaries who seek to strengthen their stranglehold on communities. Crime, sadly, exists everywhere, and everyone should be able to depend on a police service — not a police force — to protect them. Some of those who are opposed to the police, such as dissident republican groups, want to drag us all back to the dark days of the past. They want to play on — prey on — people's memories of the RUC as a protagonist in the conflict and to portray the PSNI as imperial crown forces against whom they defend their community. Some of those republicans are up to their neck in criminality. The best outcomes are achieved through policing with, rather than of, the community. For the motion to describe the demilitarisation of policing in south Armagh as politically motivated is itself politically motivated. For that reason, we support the amendment. The ramming of police vehicles is reprehensible. It risks the lives of not just officers but all road users. We support calls for those who are responsible for it to face the full rigours of the law, but we need the cooperation of the community to maximise the chances of perpetrators being prosecuted. We still have a long way to go on that, particularly in areas where cooperation with the police was so actively discouraged for so many years.

695 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 10:00 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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