The North's Social Development Minister Margaret Ritchie has given the UDA 60 days to begin decommissioning its weapons or else forfeit £1.2 million (€1.8 million) in funding for loyalist areas. Gerry Moriarty,Northern Editor, reports.
The SDLP minister told the loyalist paramilitary organisation yesterday that it was "payback" time for the UDA and that it was "drinking at the last chance saloon".
Without speedy movement on weapons, she was not prepared to release any more funding to the loyalist Conflict Transformation Initiative (CTI). The initiative is run by the Ulster Political Research Group (UPRG), which is a mouthpiece for the UDA. The initial response from Frankie Gallagher, spokesman for the UPRG, was that "while the UDA has the same goal as Margaret Ritchie, ultimatums don't work".
He did not, however, rule out the prospect of some movement from the UDA over the coming two months. Ms Ritchie, at a Stormont press conference yesterday, set out in forceful terms her demand for UDA decommissioning. She said that following recent UDA-linked violence in Carrickfergus and in the Kilcooley estate in Bangor, she was not prepared to continue supporting the CTI project.
Her move has the implicit support of the PSNI. After last week's violence in Kilcooley the PSNI chief constable Sir Hugh Orde said, "If you want my personal opinion, I wouldn't give them 50 pence."
Ms Ritchie inherited the CTI project from direct-rule minister David Hanson, who in March announced three-year £1.2 million funding to the Farset organisation to help wean loyalist areas away from paramilitary control. So far £70,000 (€103,000) has been paid to Farset, which employs up to 14 people and who are now on notice.
From the outset Ms Ritchie expressed "profound concerns" about the initiative. She said the project was "predicated on the expectation that the UDA would move away from violence and, frankly, get off the backs of the communities where it is based and wider Northern Ireland society.
"The funding will end 60 days from now unless there is clear and demonstrable evidence that the UDA has engaged meaningfully with the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning (IICD) and has started to decommission its weapons," she said.
"I will also want to see evidence that the UDA has moved irreversibly away from criminality and violence to positive and lawful community transformation. Helping those communities to begin to flourish again and promoting their interests is, and will remain, my priority in dealing with this matter."
The "war" was over, she said, and it was "time for all those who subject their communities to thuggery, extortion and violence under the pretence of defending them to get off-stage too".
UDA sources have indicated it will not observe Ms Ritchie's 60-day disarmament-start deadline. However, Mr Gallagher said the UDA was already liaising with the IICD and the Independent Monitoring Commission. "Ultimatums never work but it is not impossible that we will get progress or meaningful dialogue in the next 60 days," he added.
Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern said he strongly endorsed Ms Ritchie's "robust" challenge to the UDA.