Northern Ireland needs 200m to fight republican terror, warns police chief

Head of PSNI said extra funds will allow his force to tackle mounting violence by groups opposed to peace process

An extra 200m will be needed to wage war on dissident republican terror groups, Northern Ireland's chief constable warned today.

Matt Baggott, the head of the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), has revealed that he has asked the UK Treasury to allocate the additional spending on anti-terrorist operations.

He told members of the policing board that the funds were needed to ensure stability of his force. "I do need to have additional support to tackle the terrorist problem," Baggott said. "This is a very, very real and sustained challenge to the political process and it's one that we have to tackle head on.

He added: "We have over the last two years already received support from the Treasury as a measure of that additional threat, I am asking for that to be sustained over the next four years."

The PSNI chief's demand for additional resources comes as the three main republican terror groups opposed to the peace process are trying to ratchet up their violence.

Over the past week Oghlaigh nahEireann bombers have caused widespread disruption in Belfast, with a series of security alerts.

However, the Real IRA has sustained losses with the arrest of several key suspects across the border in the Irish Republic. Earlier this week in a planned Garda anti-terrorist operation in Dublin, detectives seized bomb-making equipment in the north of the city. In a separate search in Bray, County Wicklow, Garda recovered an AK47 assault rifle. A number of people, including a woman in her 20s were arrested.

Gardai in Dublin are now working on the theory that as well as supplying arms to their colleagues in Northern Ireland, dissident republicans in the capital are behind a series of shootings targeting gangland figures.


guardian.co.uk Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

UK greenhouse gas emissions fall 8.7%

Image
Total UK emissions plummet as recession lowers electricity and fuel use A dramatic fall in greenhouse gas emissions following the recession has brought the UK's climate change targets for the next five years within easy reach, taking the pressure off government and business to comply. Government estimates released on Tuesday showed greenhouse gas emissions fell by 8.7% from 2008 to 2009, the biggest drop since records began in 1990. Carbon dioxide levels plunged 9.8%, a fall only matched in 1980, in records extending to 1970. The unexpectedly deep slump in emissions mirrors the fall in industrial output in the recession, with high-emitting sectors including construction and transport hit particularly hard. But it also means that government-set climate change targets of cutting emissions by 35% by 2020, compared with 1990 levels, now look much easier to meet. The UK has already met the targets for 2016, provided emissions stay at 2009 levels. This raises the prospect that business...
Keep reading

Top flyer boo-boo : Shut off noisy engines

LONDON: It's too noisy, could you please turn off the engines ? Could you please open the window? These are some of the "foolish" and "bizarre requests" flyers often make to flight attendants, according to a new survey. The survey of some 3,000 Virgin Atlantic cabin crew members found that some passengers fail to understand why they are prevented from opening the window, others think "turning down" the engines could reduce the noise. "Please, can you open the window?" was among the most common unusual queries made by uncomfortable passengers who seem to be unaware of the benefits of a pressurised cabin at 35,000ft. Other unique questions included "could you turn the engines down because they are too noisy?" and "please can the captain stop the turbulence?", the Telegraph reported. The survey also laid bare the level of comfort and service some customers expect, with several asking flight attendants "can you sho...
Keep reading

Dogs can be trained to sniff out bowel cancer, Japanese researchers say

Image
Experiments show that labrador retriever's sense of smell can identify minute traces of chemicals circulating in human body Dogs can be trained to sniff out bowel cancer, even when the disease is in its early stages, researchers in Japan claim. In a series of experiments that involved sniffing the breath or stool samples of patients, a specially-trained labrador retriever proved nearly as good at identifying those with cancer as a conventional colonoscopy examination. The team, led by Hideto Sonoda at Fukuoka dental college hospital, said some dogs have such a keen sense of smell that they can detect minute traces of chemicals that appear to circulate in the bodies of people who have cancer. The finding builds on previous experiments in which researchers used dogs to sniff out cancers in the skin, lungs, bladder and ovaries. Writing in the journal Gut , the researchers describe how the eight-year-old dog was trained to distinguish between the smell of a patient with colorectal canc...
Keep reading