Ratepayers should not have to pay people to stop killing - Long

6.45.00pm GMT Mon 2nd Oct 2006

Alliance Party Vice Chair Michael Long

Alliance Party Vice Chair Michael Long has said the Northern Ireland rate payer will not put up with any notion that groups should be paid to stop killing people. His comments come after part of the UDA called for £8million funding to convert to peaceful methods.

The Castlereagh Councillor stated: "The last thing the long-suffering Northern Ireland rate payer wants to do is fork out a few more million to pay people to stop killing. Whatever happened in our past, people should not need financial incentives to stop being violent!

"One would have thought that any paramilitary grouping would have quite enough money already to pay for the kind of things the UDA is looking for, without asking the hard-working people to pay out still more.

"We in the Alliance Party will talk to anyone wishing to move groups of people away from violence and gangsterism. But we will not advocate the Northern Ireland rate payer paying for it. Non-violence and abiding by the law is a moral imperative, not a financial option."

ENDS