Minister axes loyalist regeneration fund
The organisation handling a controversial fund for regenerating loyalist neighbourhoods in the North has been told it will be terminated, it emerged today.
Stormont Social Development Minister Margaret Ritchie officially informed Farset Community Enterprises yesterday she was stopping the £1.2m (€1.72m) Community Transformation Initiative – just over two weeks after she announced the move in the Assembly.
Ms Ritchie made the decision to axe the fund because of the failure of the loyalist Ulster Defence Association to disarm and wind down its paramilitary and criminal operations.
The nationalist SDLP minister justified her decision because her Northern Ireland Office predecessors had, before devolution, publicly linked the fund to UDA actions.
Loyalists, however, insisted the UDA had no role in the administration of the fund, which had been contracted instead to Farset, a respected community development organisation.
Ms Ritchie’s decision sparked a clash in the Assembly between her and one of her power sharing cabinet colleagues, Democratic Unionist Finance Minister Peter Robinson, who accused her of failing to follow proper legal and ministerial advice before acting.
A spokesman for the Department for Social Development confirmed the letter to Farset Community Enterprises was hand-delivered yesterday.
