George Hamilton addresses the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee at the House of Commons on Wednesday. Photograph: UK Parliament/PALoyalist paramilitaries were often behaving as “community workers by day and terrorists by night”, former Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) chief constable George Hamilton has told a Westminster committee. Mr Hamilton, who led the PSNI from 2014 to 2019, said loyalist communities must be empowered to resist the influence of paramilitaries in their neighbourhoods who ruled by fear and intimidation. Mr Hamilton and Mr Orde both said the costs attached to legacy investigations and any subsequent legal claims must be completely separated from today’s PSNI. “The funding needs to be completely separated out from policing because it’s just a constant suck on money,” Mr Hamilton said.

Source: The Irish Times January 21, 2026 18:40 UTC