Ulster Unionist MLA and Executive Office Vice-Chair Doug Beattie MC, has said that Sinn Fein are abandoning victims who thought the issue of the Victims’ Payment Scheme had been resolved.
Doug Beattie MC MLA said:
“It is difficult, at times, not to feel totally deflated with aspects of Northern Ireland politics. For some it seems every action, every policy, every manoeuvre is based around our past and the preservation of a specific narrative, regardless of who suffers as a consequence.
“The very fact that The Executive Office couldn’t get its act together to sort out a Victims’ Payment Scheme so it fell to Westminster to resolve is bad enough. But now Westminster have legislated for a VPS The Executive Office still can’t get their act together to even nominate a lead department.
“It would be fair to say that the UK Government must put some financial resource into the VPS as it is a UK-wide scheme. However, the Northern Ireland Executive must be prepared to pay also.
“The sheer audacity of Sinn Fein to want the UK Govt to fund the whole scheme that covers many of the victims of the IRA who they supported is shameful. But to add insult to injury they want those IRA perpetrators to avail of the same payment to give them equivalence with their victims.
“This is Sinn Fein acting for the few, not the many, to preserve their own narrative of the past. They are abandoning hundreds of victims who had thought this issue had been resolved and it is totally unforgivable.”