Terry Spence, Chairman of the Police Federation for Northern Ireland, has given a qualified welcome to the Chief Constable's decision to move 150 frontline police officers to the guarding of police stations.

Terry Spence, Chairman of the Police Federation for Northern Ireland, has given a qualified welcome to the Chief Constable's decision to move 150 frontline police officers to the guarding of police stations.

He said: "This is greatly overdue recognition of the dissident terrorist threat to stations and that they must be properly secured. The obvious officers to do this duty are our full time reserve colleagues. The major problem is that all 230 of them are scheduled to leave in March which will leave a massive shortfall in officers available for frontline duty. And when you remember that they have a minimum of 15 years operational experience it becomes increasingly obvious that letting them go is a nonsense when we are already down to around 7,000 officers.
"As for talk about getting officers out from behind desks, that is more a medium to long term answer and does not address the pressing need for officers to be deployed to frontline duty now. "
 
ENDS
 
Note to editors
 
Terry Spence is available for interview through Alan Burnside.

Release Date - 02 Dec 2010