Plans by the British government to give £1.2 million (€1.76 million) over three years to an organisation connected to loyalist paramilitary group have been condemned.
SDLP's John Dallat
Northern Ireland's Department of Social Development is expected to approve the funding today in response to a business plan drawn up by the Ulster Political Research Group (UPRG), which provides political analysis to the Ulster Defence Association.
Under the plan, the UPRG will employ 12 people to work across six regions in Northern Ireland to enable loyalist communities to access social and economic funds.
But SDLP East Derry MLA John Dallat has criticised the plan.
"It's hard to think that money I have contributed to the British Exchequer in income tax is now being used to reward the agents of killing gangs who murdered my constituents," he said. "It is like being made to pay for the bullet that kills you."
East Antrim Democratic Unionist Party MP Sammy Wilson said he was amazed that money was being handed over despite recent reports by the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee at Westminster that said the organisation was still heavily involved in criminality and extortion.
"To give this group taxpayers' money is another example of bad government and will simply outrage the tens of thousands of law-abiding citizens throughout Northern Ireland," he said.
"But UPRG spokesman Frankie Gallagher said loyalism deserved a process of conflict transformation equal to that undertaken by republicanism.
"This funding will reinforce what the UPRG has been doing and saying, that people want to move on from paramilitarism and from crime," he said.