Local PSNI District Commander, Chief Superintendent Gerry O'Callaghan, admits that with the number of officers at his disposal slashed by almost a third: "It's just putting a whole lot of pressure on us."

    His problems have been exacerbated by recent promotions that have seen him lose three of his top detectives.

    "If there was a murder here tomorrow I couldn't possibly resource it," he concedes.

    The few detectives that remain are committed to tackling serious crime. Burglaries and lesser offences are being left to a Crime Team to tackle. He is also finding it "extremely difficult" to keep community policing on the beat.

    Chief Superintendent O'Callaghan explains that although the number of full-time officers at his disposal would not be "a million miles away" from being in keeping with the recommendations of the Patten Report on police reform, the loss of almost 90 members of the full-time reserve has dealt him a serious blow.

    Most of those officers came from outside the county and manned Border stations like Rosslea and Newtownbutler. Their role was principally one of countering the terrorist threat.

    Chief Superintendent O'Callaghan says that although that threat has diminished dissident republicans continue to pose a danger. Members of Continuity IRA are active in Newtownbutler while the Real IRA operates along the Ballyshannon/Donegal Border.

    "The potential is still there," he maintains.

    No full-time reserve officers have been recruited in the past three years so those that have left have not been replaced. Therefore Chief Superintendent O'Callaghan is having to send regular officers to Border stations in response to the terrorist threat. That has had an obvious knock-on effect on the number of uniform police available for normal duty.

    According to official figures he is 12 regular officers short of operational strength.

    "But we are way, way down on full-time reserve," Chief Superintendent O'Callaghan points out.

    "The shortage of full-time reserve would be causing me problems; if I'm having to use regular rather than full-time reserve for security duties," he explains.

    Patten put forward the idea of community policing, of officers going out on the street and into housing estates to work alongside the public in tackling crime, backed by response units to deal with emergencies. That is seen as the way ahead for the PSNI.

    However, as Chief Superintendent O'Callaghan explains, a lack of officers in other areas of Northern Ireland has forced the service to abandon community policing altogether and devote what limited resources at its disposal to responding to emergencies.

    "We are trying to balance the two, but it's extremely difficult to keep it going," he admits. "I'm having great difficulty keeping it going."

    He is currently getting a new recruit - a student officer from the PSNI Training College at Garnerville in County Down - every 10 weeks, and is hopeful that this will eventually fill the deficit and give him a full complement of regular officers. However, that will still leave him almost 90 officers under strength.

    "There needs to be a decision on the full-time reserve," says Chief Superintendent O'Callaghan.

    In saying so he is echoing the words of the new Chief Constable, Hugh Orde, who, on taking up his post on Monday, said that in the present circumstances he needed the full-time reserve; that they are the officers on the front line.

    The Chief Constable also admitted: "At the moment I am very concerned about the lack of detectives. The Patten fall-out, to a large extent, is that I have run out of detectives and you can't investigate major crimes without detectives."

    That problem is reflected in the situation in Fermanagh where a few detectives are left to handle the most serious offences.

    As Chief Superintendent O'Callaghan explains: "In the last round-up I lost three good detectives because they all got promotion."

    That has left an "already struggling" response team in even greater difficulty.

    "It's a balancing match the whole time, and there's so much detective work to do. What would have been done by them a couple of years ago is now done by the Crime Team, who investigate burglaries," says Chief Superintendent O'Callaghan. And when it comes to really serious crime he simply has not got the staff to cope. For example the modern method of investigating a murder requires a team of 20 to 30 detectives.

    "If there was a murder here tomorrow I couldn't possible resource it," states Chief Superintendent O'Callaghan.

    Faced with such a murder he would have to draft in officers from other areas.

    The DUP MLA Maurice Morrow blames the Good Friday Agreement and the Patten Report for creating what he describes as "a demoralised police force, struggling to keep control of a deteriorating law and order situation."

    He says: "New thinking and extra personnel must be made available to the police if anarchy and lawlessness is to be countered."

    "It is patently obvious that the police's lack of manpower is seriously restricting its ability to get to grips with the violence or our streets," he adds.