Campaigner urges Sinn Fein to end its blocking of payouts
A MAN who lost his wife and father-in-law in the Shankill bomb is calling on Sinn Fein to “stop blocking” a Troubles pension for around 500 people seriously injured in the conflict.
Alan Mcbride said he understood that the party had concerns that draft British Government guidelines could exclude some republican victims.
But he believes that the vast majority of ex-prisoners will be eligible and that it is “morally wrong” for Sinn Fein to hold back the pension “for so many just because a small number of their people might be ruled out”.
Mr Mcbride also accused the DUP of not standing up enough for victims at the Executive table.
He said the party had in the past battled harder against Sinn Fein on language and cultural matters than it was now doing on the victims’ issue. “The DUP aren’t pushing this enough,” he said.
Mr Mcbride’s wife Sharon and father-in-law Desmond Frizzell were killed in the 1993 IRA bomb.
Victim Jennifer Mcnern will later this week launch a legal action against the Executive for the failure “to comply with legislation to provide payments for those severely injured through no fault of their own during the Troubles”.
Ms Mcnern lost her legs in the IRA’S 1972 Abercorn bomb.
The Victims’ Payment Scheme had been due to open for applications on May 29.
But a row over the definition of a victim has meant that did not happen and structures passed into law at Westminster in January to administer the scheme are not in place. Sinn Fein says the British Government’s draft guidelines discriminate against ex-prisoners and are far removed from the legislation.
Mr Mcbride said: “Sinn Fein is blocking the scheme by refusing to nominate the Justice Department to administer it.
“The party fears that ex-prisoners injured in the conflict, who have served over two-and-a-half years in jail, won’t be eligible, but I don’t believe that’s so.
“Those prisoners will be able to apply to the scheme. I understand that, unless they are notorious individuals or people who have remained involved in violence, they will secure the pension.
“Rather than blocking the scheme for everybody, Sinn Fein should be working to ensure that the panel which will make the decisions, and will be led by a High Court judge, is fair and balanced.”
Mr Mcbride added: “I’ve a lot of respect for Sinn Fein. I’ve worked closely with the party in the past and consider some of its members friends.
“But they are wrong on this and they need to step back and think of the many, not the few.
“I certainly don’t believe ex-paramilitaries should be automatically excluded from a pension.
“My late father was in the UDA. Growing up in a working-class loyalist area, I’m very aware that joining a paramilitary organisation doesn’t necessarily make you a bad person.”
❝ I certainly don’t believe ex-paramilitaries should be automatically excluded