PSNI chief says ‘calm the rhetoric’ as fears raised of loyalist violence

Irish foreign affairs minister Simon Coveney was evacuated from an event in Belfast earlier this year following a loyalist threat. Picture: PA

The PSNI chief constable said he has not seen any corroboration of a heightened threat of violence and disorder from loyalist paramilitaries, as he appealed to people to “calm the rhetoric”.

Simon Byrne told a meeting of the Northern Ireland Policing Board that there were evidently “tensions and palpable frustration” within loyalism over the Northern Ireland Protocol.