THE English edition of the Mirror newspaper has accused the British Prime Minister, Mr Major, of betraying Lance-Bombardier Restorick by putting his government's survival before peace in Northern Ireland. The soldier was killed at Bessbrook, Co Armagh, this week.
The newspaper said the government had allowed "the fragile and hard-won ceasefire to collapse into bloodshed" and peace was impossible to achieve while Mr Major "stubbornly" clung to power.
Lance-Bombardier Restorick will be buried on February 24th and his parents have invited Mrs Lorraine McElroy, who was also wounded.
Mrs McElroy said last night: "People ask me if I'm nervous, as a Catholic, of going to a British soldier's funeral. But I'm not going to a British, soldier's funeral. I'm going the funeral of a young man who died in front of me.