DUP Policing Board member: 'We are content to keep Chief Constable Simon Byrne until 2027... but can we have a replacement Secretary of State?'

He had joined the force in 2019, replacing George Hamilton, and within a year his tenure was heavily marred by the widespread perception that the PSNI had mishandled the Bobby Storey funeral extravaganza, which took place amidst of tight lockdown rules.

• Bobby Storey funeral: Ex-RUC men remember how IRA murdered their comrade ... then blew up Roselawn so his coffin could not enter

Under Mr Byrne the force has also moved to ingratiate itself with gay and transgender activists, such as by letting officers march in Pride parades with specially-liveried vehicles and by pledging to celebrate “transgender, queer, intersex, asexual, and agender communities” (agender being people who claim to be neither male, nor female, nor intersex, nor “non-binary”).

Mr Clarke, one of three DUP members of the Policing Board, said of the extention to his contract: “I’m genuinely content enough.

"I think we could find fault with any of the former Chief Constables.

"The current one, yeah: you could probably point to the Bobby Storey incident, and probably other things.

"But broadly I think he’s done a reasonable job in what’s becoming more difficult circumstances, given the financial pressures he faces.”

Mr Clarke said Mr Hamilton had committed to “engage” with both unionist / loyalist figures and nationalist / republican ones, but that “the proof of the pudding will be in the eating”.

“There’s a clear perception there’s two-tier policing. I think he’s gone some way to try and restore confidence. I think he has to be given time, and for that reason I think the extension is a sensible approach.”

Previous police chiefs have said the PSNI cannot afford to investigate the thousands of unsolved Troubles murders and present-day crime too, and in a report to the Policing Board last year, the chief constable said that unless this pressure is relieved the force could be “unrecognisable” by 2025.

Since then the Tory Party has imposed a budget on the Department of Justice of £1.157bn, down from £1.184bn.

“I wish him well in the next couple of years to try and navigate the organisation though that,” said Mr Clarke.

"The last thing the organisation needs now is for another change given the turmoil it is going through from financial pressures.

"If we could get a new Secretary of State for NI, one that listens and actually takes on the genuine concerns of the people of NI, I’d much rather see that than worry about the extention of [Byrne’s] contract.”