Thursday, March 09, 2006
NI soldiers receive £250m pay-off
I see redundancy packages costing up to £250m for 3,000 Northern Ireland Royal Irish Regiment soldiers have been announced in the House of Commons.British Armed Forces Minister Adam Ingram said full-time soldiers would receive a special payment of £28,000, a redundancy payment and a pension.
Part-time soldiers will receive a special payment of about £14,000, but are not entitled to redundancy.
The three home service battalions are due to be disbanded by May next year.
A senior officer with 22 years service could receive approximately £151,211.
What a very handsome package this is for troops who were an absoloute disgrace to all decent British people and who engaged in some atrocious carry-on whilst serving in Ireland's north. Just listen to these ridiculous comments from Mr Ingram:
"We will never forget that over 200 Royal Irish home service/UDR personnel have made the ultimate sacrifice while serving in Northern Ireland.
"They should all be rightly proud of the crucial role they have played in creating the environment for normalisation."
You seem to have forgotten the ultimate crimes many of these men committed whilst on Irish soil!
So long, farewell...
I'm inclined to agree with Sinn Féin's Michelle Gildernew who said the redundancy package should have been allocated to improving public services:
"Rather than seek a British Exchequer subvention of millions for the exclusive benefit of the unionist population, I believe that many people in places like Fermanagh and Tyrone would prefer to see this money spent on improving the roads infrastructure, improving local schools and in developing the local economy to the benefit of everyone."
She said that families whose relatives had been victims of collusion between loyalist paramilitaries and members of the Ulster Defence Regiment and Royal Irish Regiment were angry at the package.
I've no doubt the families are angry and the fact is there are working class loyalist areas too which could and should have benefitted from this money.
The British government has made a poor decision here.
# posted by United Irelander @ 2:36 PM 
© 2008 United Irelander.
