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Naomi Long was speaking on the Stephen Nolan Show on Monday
The justice minister has said she strongly disagrees with Northern Ireland’s most senior police officer that devolution has failed policing.
Chief Constable Jon Boutcher made the comments as he said his force had a dangerously low number of officers and was facing a funding crisis.
Naomi Long did however agree that the Department of Justice (DoJ) had not been prioritised by Stormont when it came to funding.
Policing is a devolved matter in Northern Ireland, with the Police Service for Northern Ireland (PSNI) primarily being funded by the DoJ.
In an interview published on Monday, Mr Boutcher said “devolution has simply not worked for policing in Northern Ireland”.
“Choices have been made to support the education budget and the health budget,” Mr Boucher told the Irish Times.
“We have lost out as a result of devolution.”
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PSNI Chief Constable Jon Boutcher said his force was facing a funding crisis
The PSNI currently has about 6,200 officers – the lowest number in its history.
In September 2024, Mr Boutcher drew up a recovery plan to increase the headcount to 7,000 by 2028.
In January the PSNI said it would need an extra £200m to address the staffing deficit.
The PSNI receives the majority of its funding from the DoJ out of the block grant.
There is a small additional contribution from the Northern Ireland Office (NIO) to deal with the national security threat and paramilitarism.
Speaking to the Stephen Nolan Show, Long said she “strongly disagrees” that devolution has failed policing in Northern Ireland.
“What he’s [Jon Boutcher] talking about is the fact that he doesn’t believe that the executive has prioritised the DoJ when it comes to funding,” the justice minister said.
“I agree with him wholeheartedly, that is true. I think the DoJ, we used to get 11% of the block grant at devolution. We now get 8% of the block grant.”
She said she had continually been fighting for more funding.
“You cannot run justice on a shoestring and then complain that things go wrong, that we don’t have enough police officer, that things take too long going through the courts,”she said.
“We’re not valuing it by paying for it. I’ve been making the case that we need to do.”
When was policing devolved?
The Good Friday Agreement, also called the Belfast Agreement, was signed in 1998 and called for policing reforms which helped paved the way for the devolution of policing.
In 2010 policing and justice powers in Northern Ireland were then devolved under the Hillsborough Agreement.
Before that policing was controlled and funded directly by the UK government.
Unlike other ministerial posts in Stormont which are chosen through the D’Hondt system, the justice minster has to be elected by a cross-community vote.
Alliance has held the post for most of the period since 2010, apart from 2016–2017 when Claire Sugden, an independent unionist member of the legislative assembly served as justice minister after Alliance chose not to enter the Executive.
Mob protest ’embarrassing’
Long has been justice minister since 2024. She also served in the post from 2020 to 2022.
In October a mob of about 40 people turned up outside her home in what is believed to have been a protest related to the housing of sex offenders in residential areas.
She told the Stephen Nolan Show it was both disturbing and embarrassing.
“I was embarrassed that the police were back outside my house again because that’s not the way I want to live and it’s not the way I want my neighbours to have to live,” she said.
“I’m not going to have a debate in my driveway and it’s not an appropriate way to behave.
“And I was very grateful, actually, that across the political spectrum, everybody was really clear that it wasn’t acceptable.”
