Sir Jeffrey said,
“This is a good day for those innocent victims who have had to wait far too long for this payment.
It is a mark of shame that it took the courts last August to force Sinn Fein to progress this pension. Michelle O’Neill had refused to progress the Scheme because Sinn Fein wanted the perpetrators of terrorism to be eligible for the Scheme.
I am delighted that those injured through no fault of their own are at long last being recognised for the suffering they have endured in silence. There is no moral equivalence between the victim maker and those who were bereaved or injured.
We pay tribute to those victims spokespeople who we were privileged to campaign alongside to get this pension in place. It has been a long road since the summer of 2019 when we were able to convince the then government to proceed with this Scheme as part of the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation) Bill in Westminster.”
