Statement by TUV leader and North Antrim candidate Jim Allister:

“The decision to retain some of the Full Time Reserve is welcome as far as it goes. However, it is simply not enough. In the face of rising terrorism the decision to scrap the FTR needs not just to be delayed but reversed.

“Ian Paisley Jur’s comments on the matter are disingenuous in the extreme. His is the party which promised that the Full Time Reserve would have to be retained if the devolution of policing and justice was to proceed. It was, supposedly, a “deal breaker” for the DUP.

“Yet now he trumpets a delay in phasing it out as some sort of victory!

“Let’s be clear here. The DUP betrayed the Full Time Reserve at Hillsborough when they failed to hold the line and keep their pledge that its retention - not a sentence of death with a stay of execution of until next March – was a precondition before policing and justice could be devolved to their terrorist inclusive executive”.