The issue of a new and alledgedly more accurate plastic bullet to the RUC and army in Northern Ireland and police forces throughout the UK was today condemned by Sinn Fein. However Northern Ireland Secretary Dr John Reid said the British government was carrying forward the recommendations of the Patten Report on policing change in Ulster which said there should be investment in research into finding an acceptable, less dangerous, alternative to the present plastic bullet round. He said the British government would be delighted if the public order situation in Northern Ireland improved sufficiently to remove the need to resort to plastic bullets at all. But Dr Reid said the government would ensure every effort was made to find an alternative and to provide the police with a broader range of public order equipment. We will continue the search for a safer alternative, but meanwhile we have introduced a round that independent experts have concluded is, on balance, a great deal safer than the existing one.
Plastic bullets have to be banned from use.
He indicated it would be another issue on which Sinn Fein's support for the new policing service being constructed in Northern Ireland would depend. It is estimated that since the British Army first used a baton round, on 2 August 1970, well over 100,000 have been fired. Although the weapon is available for use in England, the police forces there have yet to use it. The deployment of the weapon was reported by the media, but only as a precaution and it was to be fired only when authorized by a senior police officer. However, in Northern Ireland, the use of plastic bullets has become a common occurance.