Loyalist-linked groups paid from poverty fund
Posted By: October 22, 2016
Newton Emerson. Irish News (Belfast). October 22, 2016
Concern continues to grow about loyalist-linked groups benefitting from Stormont’s Social Investment Fund. However, a wider threat is being missed. The £80 million fund is part of the Executive Office’s overall anti-poverty and cohesion strategy, another key part of which is the £45 million urban villages program. This will build clusters of commercial units in deprived parts of inner Belfast and Derry, with the aim of attracting small businesses and independent retailers. These are the targets most vulnerable to paramilitary protection demands, which did so much to cause deprivation in the first place. In a court case two years ago, involving an alleged UDA racket in south Belfast, a PSNI officer said: “Extortion and paramilitary blackmail is going on in Northern Ireland today. It’s as prevalent in areas of Belfast as it was 20 to 30 years ago. Businesses can’t work unless they pay the paramilitaries.” What guarantee do we have that Stormont is not simply luring in a new set of victims?
