Additional funds for victims of the conflict in Northern Ireland, provided by the European II Peace Programme, were welcomed by the Assembly yesterday.
Approximately £6.67 million is to be provided to victims through the programme. This is in addition to £9 million pledged by the Northern Ireland Office.
The money will be used largely to provide reskilling, retraining and re-employment, according to Mr Denis Haughey (SDLP).
There was disagreement among Assembly members over who should be regarded as "victims". The proposals provided little guidance on the matter, said the Northern Ireland Unionist Party MLA Mr Norman Boyd.
"There is no specific definition of a victim in the programme and the term `victim' is used in a wide context to mean many things to many people," he said.
Victims should not include those killed by the security forces, Mrs Iris Robinson (DUP) said. "By victims I mean those who have suffered as a result of terrorist violence," she said.
"There is a difference between those who carried out terrorist atrocities and those who suffered at the hands of these same terrorists," she said.
Mr Alban Maginness (SDLP) said those people who considered themselves to be victims should be regarded as such by others.
Mrs Mary Nelis (Sinn Fein) said that any definition of victim should include those who had suffered from state violence.
"Labelling some victims of those killed as innocent, and by implication others as guilty, suggests that some were right and some were wrong. This makes a nonsense of the historic compromise that is the Good Friday agreement," she said.