Sign up to The Irish Times Archive (1859 - 2008)My Account »

Northern Ireland Security Minister Paul Goggins is to come under pressure tomorrow to fill a multi-million pound hole in the policing budget.

Last week Chief Constable Sir Hugh Orde produced a cuts plan to help balance his books, but this was rejected by the Policing Board whose members insisted government must pay bills left over from the Troubles.

The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) is struggling to pay pensions to thousands of retired officers and faces a £90 million compensation bill for officers who suffered hearing damage during weapons training in the 1970s.

Mr Goggins will meet Policing Board members tomorrow at Stormont, with one politician insisting the board was determined to resist cuts to police services.

Ulster Unionist policing board member Basil McCrea said, however, that if decisions were not taken quickly, then the prospect of radical cuts to policing would emerge.

“We need action today,” he said. “Many of these costs are outside our control...it is unreasonable for us to fund such issues at the cost of operational matters.”

He said the board members would show a united front on the need for government action: “The board is baring its teeth on this.”

Representatives of the board will meet Mr Goggins tomorrow to demand government foots the bill for costs linked to the Troubles and the period of direct rule.

When the Royal Ulster Constabulary was transformed into the PSNI the force was downsized in recognition of the changing political situation in Northern Ireland, but the shift has left the service with a massive pensions bill to pay.