MPs to vote on suspension of SF allowances
British MPs are to vote today on a proposal to strip Sinn Féin of up to £500,000 (€717,600) in parliamentary allowances in response to allegations of IRA involvement in the Belfast Northern Bank raid.
Members will debate a proposed 12-month suspension of the Westminster allowances paid to Sinn Féin’s four MPs.
The plan was proposed by Northern Secretary Paul Murphy in response to a damning report on the robbery by the Independent Monitoring Commission, which recommended imposing penalties.
The Provisionals are suspected of staging the spectacular £26.5m (€38m) heist that crippled the peace process – a claim the IRA denies.
Sinn Féin MPs were controversially granted allowances – worth a total of around £500,000 (€717,600) – and given offices and other Westminster privileges, in December 2001.
The decision provoked fury among Tory MPs because the four MPs refuse to take the oath of allegiance and so cannot sit in the chamber, vote or take part in debates.
The Independent Monitoring Commission concluded that the Provisional IRA had “planned and undertaken” the raid as well as three other major robberies last year.
The four-member commission’s report backed up the guilty verdict delivered to the Provisionals from police chiefs on both sides of the border.
Sinn Féin has rejected the commission’s findings, claiming it is not a properly independent body.
Mr Murphy pointed out that the report concluded that Sinn Féin must “bear its share of the responsibility”, and called for punishment to be handed down.
Mr Murphy has already confirmed a further 12-month extension on a ban on Sinn Fein’s £120,000 (€172,200) Stormont assembly grant for earlier IRA crime.
This sanction is to come into effect on April 29, the day after an existing sanction expires.
