Sinn Féin attacks £250m army redundancy package

A £250 million-plus (€364m) redundancy package for more than 3,000 soldiers in the North should have been allocated to improving public services, a Sinn Féin MP claimed yesterday.

Michelle Gildernew said families whose relatives had been victims of alleged collusion between loyalist paramilitaries and members of the Ulster Defence Regiment and Royal Irish Regiment (RIR) were angry at the pay-off.

She said they would have preferred the money, which is being given to full-time and part-time soldiers affected by plans to phase out three Northern Ireland-based battalions of the RIR, to be spent on improving roads, schools and boosting the economy.