“By linking the project’s funding to the UDA..”

Jim Gibney may have been extolling the virtues of carrots, something Jackie McDonald was undoubtedly nodding in agreement to, but in Saturday’s Irish News [via the indispensible Newshound] the UPRG’s Frankie Gallagher was waving a stick. Whether his own name would be on such a claim for damages isn’t made clear, but he is one of the staff employed under the publicly funded CTI project.From the Irish News article on Newshound

Among the 15 staff employed by the CTI project, one – Billy ‘Twister’ McQuiston – is an ex-UDA prisoner.

Frankie Gallagher, Colin Haliday and Sammy Duddy, members of the UPRG which gives advice to the UDA, are also on the pay-roll.

However, a number of staff are community workers with no loyalist background, with one believed to be a Catholic university graduate. Some are now taking legal advice with a view to seeking damages from the government.

By linking the project’s funding to the UDA, staff claim they have been put at risk and their future careers irreparably damaged.

The linking of the funding to a reduction of the criminal and paramilitary activities of the UDA was in the announcement in March by then NIO minister David Hanson, MP.

And here’s Colin Halliday and Sammy Duddy, and Frankie Gallagher [not pictured] on a day trip to Larne recently..

Pete Baker