Stormont ministers were today accused of engaging in nonsensical semantics in their row with a cabinet colleague over her decision to axe a £1.2 million loyalist fund.
Victims' organisation Relatives For Justice defended SDLP minister Margaret Ritchie for announcing on Tuesday that she was stopping the Conflict Transformation Initiative.
And the group confirmed it had raised with Ms Ritchie, before her decision, concerns about whether the fund complied with equality legislation.
Relatives For Justice revealed: "It is our understanding that the Executive instruction/agreement related only to withdrawing the funding and any challenges only by Farset or the loyalist UDA/UPRG Conflict Transformation Initiative (CTI).
"However, during the course of this agreement from the Executive, Minister Ritchie's department received a Freedom of Information letter from Relatives For Justice which clearly sought information relating to the Section 75 of the funding and other associated information that could demonstrate or prove that the funding was allocated in line with equality legislation.
"The minister - we believe - then rightly factored the Relatives For Justice Freedom of Information letter into the overall equation re the broader legal advice and was clearly informed that if anyone were to disagree with the continued funding to the CTI then the minister could be successfully challenged in the courts.
"When (Finance Minister) Peter Robinson talks about legal advice he deliberately avoids this additional legal advice and solely concentrates on the singular and tunnel vision perspective view of being challenged only by the Ulster Defence Association/ Ulster Political Research Group, Farset and CTI and not victims of the UDA.
"The minister made the right decision in the face of a very hostile environment. Minister Ritchie is, along with her ministerial colleague Michelle Gildernew, under death threat. Surely this deserves our collective focus rather than the nonsensical semantics within and around the Executive?"
The Conflict Transformation Initiative was originally set up by former Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Hain before devolution to persuade the Ulster Defence Association to give up its weapons and end all involvement in paramilitarism and criminality.
While the fund for regenerating loyalist communities had the support of the UDA's political advisers, loyalists were adamant that it wasn't going into the coffers of the paramilitary group. The fund was administered instead by a respected community organisation, Farset Community Enterprises. Following UDA violence over the summer, Ms Ritchie announced in the Assembly on Tuesday that she could no longer justify the continuation of the £1.2 million fund.
PA