The PSNI will have to take a new approach to dealing with paramilitary groups due to funding pressures, Chief Constable Jon Boutcher has told MPs.
During an appearance before the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, Mr Boutcher said he wanted to utilise all financial and legal possibilities to challenge the impact of terror groups on society in Northern Ireland.
A recent report from the Independent Reporting Commission (IRC) said that heightened vigilance against paramilitaries in Northern Ireland is needed, with 194 households currently homeless due to paramilitary threats.
The report also said even though it has been over 25 years since the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement, paramilitarism represents a continuing threat to individuals and society.
Mr Boutcher told the Westminster committee that among his first tasks since becoming chief constable were arranging meetings with the IRC and the multi-agency Paramilitary Crime Task Force.
He said: “I visited the task force, I sat down with all the different component parts, obviously we have got the National Crime Agency, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs involved, and looked at some of the end to end investigations to reassure myself that we are using every tool in the box to deal with these issues.
“There is a bit of test case around an unexplained wealth order and I am keen to make sure that we utilise all of those financial, legal opportunities to challenge and impact on these paramilitary groups.
“There is a real priority for me because they impact so disproportionately all the communities in which they operate, whether that be through intimidation, drugs, that we have a meaningful plan to deal with them.”
Mr Boutcher said neighbourhood policing was key to tackling the impact of paramilitarism.
He said: “Early interventions in those neighbourhoods of people who are being lured into paramilitary activity, often coercively, we have to have ears and eyes on the ground.
“That is why it is so important that we protect our neighbourhood policing.
“That is the uniform softer end of things, but the sophisticated side of dealing with these paramilitary groups – the term I often use is the lawfully audacious way that we come up with ways to take these organisations down – is something that I want to focus on.”
He said he had already discussed the issue with the head of the National Crime Agency and would be holding a further meeting.
But he also said that funding pressures facing the force mean new ways to tackle paramilitarism would be needed.
He said: “We are going to have a 9% reduction in the task force, that means people, that means less policing, we have got to make sure that it remains a priority.
“We probably are going to have to think more outside the box about how we deal with these organisations.
“It is quite a few years on now from the Good Friday Agreement.”
“We have reached a tipping point where I think we are going to have to take a new approach, we are in a different financial context and envelope about what we can do and can’t do.
“For your reassurance, that is a focus for me.”