750 dissident republican bomb alerts in last two years

Army explosives teams in the North dealt with more than 750 dissident republican bomb alerts in the past two years, a police officers body said today.

In at least 420 of those incidents a viable device with the potential to kill or injure was discovered, chairman of the Police Federation Terry Spence added.

The head of the officers’ representative body outlined the severity of the current threat posed by the dissidents as he warned British government funding cuts were undermining the ability of the Police Service of Northern Ireland to tackle the extremists.

The PSNI saw its annual £1.2bn (€1.31m) budget cut by £71m (€77.9m) last year and another £74m (€81.2m) will be shorn off in the coming two years. The British Treasury has also asked the police to identify a further £17m (€18.66m) worth of efficiency savings in the current financial year.

“In the determination to close the book on Northern Ireland as a political and security nightmare the PSNI has been dangerously under-resourced,” he told delegates at the federation’s annual conference in Belfast.

“Despite the deteriorating security situation we still have not faced up to the severity of the threat from dissidents.”

New PSNI Chief Constable Matt Baggott and Security Minister Paul Goggins were among guests invited to the La Mon House hotel to hear Mr Spence’s stark message.

While the hardline republicans remain small in number and with negligible community support, their murder of three security force members in March showed they had the capacity and will to continue operations.

The discovery of a 600lb bomb on the south Armagh border earlier this month, which came weeks after masked men set up an armed road block in the nearby village of Meigh, has again brought the issue into sharp focus.

“Ordinary decent people struggle to comprehend the mentality of these murderous dinosaurs,” Mr Spence added.

“But what we do readily understand, and what we cannot mistake, is their utter determination to kill soldiers and police officers, or anyone associated with them in any way.”

During a wide-ranging address, Mr Spence also criticised the recent decisions to axe the 500-strong Full Time Reserve police unit and sell off 26 stations to private developers.

“We are still in a period when the political future is uncertain, when the terrorist threat is growing rather than diminishing, when loyalist decommissioning looks promising but is incomplete, and when public order is easily broken,” he said. “Yet the Government still sees fit to permit the dismantling of our policing defences.”