Potential for dissident republican disorder over Easter, warns PSNI Chief Constable Simon Byrne

The head of the PSNI has warned of potential public disorder linked to dissident republicans over the Easter period.

Simon Byrne made the comments during a meeting of the Policing Board on Thursday.

He also told board members that events over the Easter period, including a planned visit by the President of the United States of America, would cost in the region of £7m.

Mr Byrne added that this would "put an additional cost pressure onto an already stretched budget".

Thursday's meeting of the Policing Board comes ahead of a busy period for the Police Service of Northern Ireland.

In the coming days and weeks, the head of the PSNI outlined that Northern Ireland will be visited by world leaders, formerly elected politicians and well as those currently holding office as part of events to mark the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement.

Simon Byrne further explained that "there are now 90 notified parades and events taking place between Good Friday 7 April and Easter Tuesday 11 April" on top of a "full programme of football matches on the evening of Friday 7 April".

"In addition to the number of notified parades, our planning is based on experience of the operation in recent years, which also takes into account the risk and likelihood of policing non-notified parades," said the police chief.

"This may include a display of paramilitary uniform and paramilitary shows of strength and we will have resources and a plan in place, including evidence gathering assets.

"We're also assuming attempts will be made to draw us into situations which may likely cause disorder over the next few days."

The PSNI will be assisted by around 300 officers from other UK regions for the next two weeks, Chief Constable Byrne said.

"Simply, we do not have the capacity to resource all of this ourselves given the competing requests we're dealing with," he explained.

In terms of budgetary pressures currently facing the police force, Mr Byrne said the position "worsened last night with the announcement of further cuts where we estimate this will amount to an equivalent of 20% of our opening budget".

He described the situation as "significant" and "unprecedented".

The police chief said the service was dealing with a "key tension" - namely - "an unprecedented rise in threat and work for the police service at a time of shrinking resource.

"We aren't going to balance the budget given the scale of the ask at the moment," he told the policing board.

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