Police in Northern Ireland 'as prepared as possible' for potential Brexit threat
Police have received an extra 拢16m in funding to prepare for Brexit and will begin recruiting an extra 308 officers soon.
Thursday 28 March 2019 19:03, UK
Police in Northern Ireland say they are "as prepared as it is possible to be" for Brexit, given the threat of terrorists and criminals seeking to exploit the border.
Deputy Chief Constable Stephen Martin told a policing board seminar in Belfast that the "unique situation" of the land border on the island had "focused minds".
He said: "Organised crime occurs now. People exploit the differences on the border now.
"If those differences become more pronounced, there will be organised criminals, some of them paramilitary-backed but not exclusively, who will step into that space and seek to exploit the situation to make money."
He added: "We do still have a severe terrorist threat in Northern Ireland from dissident republicans.
"There is no doubt that if the border if re-emphasised, they will seek to exploit that to try and increase their activity, increase disaffection, maybe get more members coming into their organisation, so we're very alert."
The police service of Northern Ireland has received an extra £16m in funding to prepare for Brexit and will begin recruiting an extra 308 officers soon.
The deputy chief constable said: "A managed withdrawal would be preferential from a policing point of view. But we have had to prepare for a no-deal situation.
"We obviously share that border with the Republic of Ireland, so even to have someone move on the same land mass, we sometimes need a European arrest warrant.
"We've had to try to identify what happens in the event that that falls away."
The police service has no plan to put infrastructure on the border, but stresses that it will be "policing with the communities" in border areas.
The deputy chief constable acknowledged that concern about the impact of Brexit is not limited to the actual border but to Northern Ireland as a whole.
He said: "Whatever the political outcome, it can actually affect people's sense of identity, it can affect people's sense of confidence within the environment in which they live.
"It's not beyond the realms of possibility we could see protest, we could see civil disobedience, we could see society itself being de-stabilised."