Cost of policing Drumcree now at £5.5m

A PSNI vehicle at the Garvaghy Road (Brian Lawless/PA)PA WireRebecca Black2 minutes agoNews Briefings

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The cost of policing the Drumcree dispute is now at £5.5 million, MLAs have heard.

Justice Minister Naomi Long said the bill included the cost of police overtime as well as mutual aid from police forces across the UK to support the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) operation.

A significant policing operation was mounted in Portadown after the Parades Commission ruled to allow an Orange Order parade along the mainly nationalist Garvaghy Road for the first time in almost 30 years.

Northern Ireland Secretary Sir Chris Bryant (Zoe Head-Thomas/PA)PA WireLarge crowds gathered on the Garvaghy Road in opposition to the parade, leading to a police assessment they could not safely escort the procession.

An almost two-week stand-off was brought to an end after Secretary of State Sir Chris Bryant stepped in to ban the parade route.

On October 1, Chief Constable Jon Boutcher told the Northern Ireland Policing Board that the cost of the policing operation had reached £3 million.

During question time for her department in the Assembly on Monday, Ms Long said the cost of the policing operation was now estimated at £5.5 million.

She also said she supported the decision by Mr Boutcher to have requested mutual aid assistance.

“At the moment the costs now are around £5.5 million in terms of the policing operation,” she told MLAs.

Stormont Justice Minister Naomi Long during questions for her department in the Northern Ireland Assembly on Monday. (NIAssembly/PA)“Of that £5.5 million, around £1.25 million is the mutual aid cost and then the remainder is a mixture of overtime and additional other expenses.

“There will of course be legal bills and other things that will come in over the course of the coming months and that will all come out of the same budget.

“People seem to think that there is a magic money pot that we just have sitting to the side that is separate to the everyday policing job – that is not the case.

“Every time we end up in these confrontations as a society we end up drawing on police resources that would otherwise be spent on other things, and I think people should be circumspect about their approach when it comes to these kind of issues.

“Think ahead, think about the costs and ask yourself is it worth the price being paid, not just in cash terms but of victims of crime who are waiting to have those investigated by police.”

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Ms Long said she was pressing for the Northern Ireland Office to cover the cost of the policing support.

“Mutual aid comes at a cost, and that cost is increasing on a daily basis,” she told MLAs.

A PSNI vehicle near Drumcree Church (Liam McBurney/PA)PA Wire“The bill for that assistance will come to the Chief Constable and to me.

“As I have stated previously, and have made it clear to the Secretary of State, the cost of mutual aid cannot be met by the PSNI within its existing budget and I have repeated my requests for costs in full to be met by the Northern Ireland Office (NIO).

“It’s important to remind Members that on top of the financial costs incurred, other policing activity will invariably be postponed, reduced or cancelled due to the need for officers to be redeployed to deal with potential public order incidents.”

Ms Long said pressure on resources will also extend to the courts, legal aid and potentially the prison system.

Pressed by DUP MLA Pam Cameron to condemn anyone involved in “unlawful and unnotified protest on the Garvaghy Road”, Ms Long said: “I believe that unlawful activity and unnotified parades are things that Members of this House shouldn’t be engaged in.

“I also believe Members of this House shouldn’t be engaged in trying to draw me as Justice Minister into the state of prejudging the outcome of cases which are currently with police for investigation and may ultimately be before the courts.

“That is also a breach of the rule of law and due process and I am not engaging in it.”