Policing drama: business needs stability

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Tom Kelly goes back in time to put the business case (subscription needed) for a full backing of the PSNI:

“If the police are not given full community support to rout these remnants of paramilitarism and their structures now, we are likely to face decades of criminality similar to that faced in the Republic of Ireland 30 years ago. At that time the splintering of the republican movement into various factions in the early and late 70s which bequeathed a legacy of lawlessness and armed criminal gangs. Some of these factions clung tenuously onto their paramilitary links to provide a degree of political cover for their criminality.”

“Our task of dealing with organised crime operating under the cover of paramilitarism is complex and manifold. We have it on both sides. Businesses in the building trade know only too well of companies paying off both the IRA and UDA for protection money on two sides of the same construction site. Is this really the type of environment likely to attract new investment?”

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