Executive finance for a loyalist "conflict transformation initiative" is expected to be withdrawn when a deadline for the UDA to begin weapons decommissioning passes at midnight tonight, SDLP sources have said.
Minister for Social Development Margaret Ritchie gave the UDA 60 days to begin a process of putting its arsenal beyond use in the immediate aftermath of serious violence last August, which chief constable Sir Hugh Orde blamed on the organisation.
The Minister has a series of meetings in Brussels this week and is not expected to make a formal announcement reallocating £1.2 million (€1.78 million) to other projects aimed at alleviating poverty in loyalist areas until next week. If the cash is reallocated, legal actions could be taken by some of those employed by the conflict transformation initiative, The Irish Times was told.
SDLP sources indicated the issue was raised at yesterday's meeting of the party's Assembly members and that the Minister was urged to follow through on her threat. They believe the UDA has not gone far enough to meet demands for decommissioning.
This is despite interventions from Northern Secretary Shaun Woodward claiming that significant progress had been made. In the latest intervention junior minister Paul Goggins called for the UDA to liaise closely and quickly with Gen John de Chastelain's decommissioning body.
"Further meetings are now planned between the UDA interlocutors and representatives of the [ de Chastelain] Commission," he said yesterday.
"Those meetings should take place sooner rather than later and I look forward to further developments along those lines. But let nobody be under any doubt whatsoever, as far as ministers in the Northern Ireland Office are concerned, the UDA should decommission and they should decommission now." The SDLP yesterday echoed Alliance criticism of Mr Woodward's comments, with senior members claiming that the NIO was attempting to press Ms Ritchie into allowing the funding arrangement, introduced under direct rule, last March to stand.
The Ulster Political Research Group (UPRG), which supplies political analysis for the UDA, said yesterday it was currently unaware of any fresh meetings between the paramilitary group and Gen de Chastelain's commission. Frankie Gallagher, spokesman for the UPRG, said Ms Ritchie's funding threat would make no difference.
"This won't change the UDA. This is not a UDA initiative. It will not disarm the UDA." He added: "I just wish it hadn't gone this far."
He indicated that some of the 14 members employed by the conflict transformation initiative could take legal action if the funding is withdrawn. There was concern, he said, that such workers had been unfairly linked with the UDA when they were not members of it.