TUV calls for Full Time Reserve to stay
18 January 2011
With the republican terrorist threat continuing to be ‘severe’, TUV Leader Jim Allister has raised fresh concern about the negative impact on basic security provision of the pending disbandment of the PSNI Full Time Reserve.
In a statement Mr Allister said:
“As we approach the end on the Full Time Reserve on 31st March the resulting security gap is becomingly increasingly clear. Vital static protection duties at several police bases are performed by the FTR. There are no suitable alternative arrangements in place, because Sinn Fein and other nationalist influences on the Policing Board scuppered the Chief Constable’s plan for the use of armed civilian guards. Now, he faces the choice of reducing the number of regular officers on frontline duties in order to provide security at stations, or leave the stations under protected. Neither option aids good policing, underscoring the utter folly of the political decision to abolish the FTR.
“Likewise the valuable work done by FTR officers in the Task Support Group (TSG) will be lost and the VIP protection pool will equally have gaps requiring to be plugged by full-time regular officers from the already under subscribed PSNI.
“As the practical reality of what it means to disband the FTR comes into focus, there is still time for the Chief Constable to assert his operational control and draw back from ending the FTR on 31st March. In the interests of adequate security and good policing he should do so. There are 200 men willing to stay on and continue the invaluable service they provide. The Chief Constable knows he needs them, so it is time he called a halt to the political decision to ditch them.
“It is also timely to reflect on the con perfected by those DUP politicians who first said saving the FTR was non-negotiable in the policing and justice talks and, then, tried to cover their sacrifice by pretending Full Time Reservists would be redeployed elsewhere within policing. It hasn’t happened, as I warned at the time it wouldn’t. Instead, the gallant men and women of the FTR were sold as pawns in the political deal with IRA/Sinn Fein.”
