£600k onovertime to tackleterrorism

The Londonderry MLA made the comments at a meeting of the Policing and Community Safety Partnership (PCSP), in which the Chief Constable George Hamilton was in attendance.

The DUP MLA questioned how much it’s costing to police the threat from dissident republicans across Northern Ireland.

He said: “It is now my information that approximately £600,000 has been spent on overtime alone since April of this year to fight terrorism in the G District, which includes Londonderry and Strabane.

“Since this includes just seven months of the financial year, if the current policing overtime is maintained, and recent events only point to a further increase, it will mean in excess of £1m for this full year.

“Even this figure takes no account of any damage done by the terror threat itself, disinvestment and reputation damage etc.

“In light of the severe budget pressures that the Police are facing, this cost is a serious drain on resources. While I appreciate that the dissident threat must be tackled, we cannot allow community policing to be affected in a detrimental way.”