SINN Féin has said the latest revelations regarding a DUP-driven grants scheme for community halls raises "major questions" about the allocation of government funding.
The Irish News revealed this week that dozens of Orange lodges and halls have received cash from lottery bodies, despite claims by the Department for Communities that many "faith based" groups would not accept such funding.
The department and its former DUP minister Paul Givan have been criticised after Orange halls were shown to dominate a list of beneficiaries of its Community Halls Pilot Programme earlier this year.
Just two GAA clubs received money under the scheme, whose budget rocketed from £500,000 to £1.9m.
Lunched by Mr Givan with former first minister Arlene Foster at an Orange hall last year, the programme was said to be “possibly the only opportunity” for many faith-based groups to secure funding for hall improvements as they do not apply for National Lottery cash because of its links to gambling.
However, it emerged that 40 Orange lodges or halls successfully applied to the Big Lottery Fund for grants totalling £357,000 over the last two years.
Other loyal orders and groups linked to the Orange Order have also received lottery cash.
Randalstown Ulster Scots Cultural Society is to receive more than £8,500 from the Big Lottery Fund to make improvements to Randalstown Memorial Orange Hall, having also been awarded £25,000 from the community halls programme.
Responding to the The Irish News revelations last night, Sinn Féin national chairperson Declan Kearney said he was "deeply concerned about the administration of the community halls scheme".
"It has been suggested that this scheme was in place to help groups which would not apply for funding from the lottery scheme, reportedly because of a ‘faith based’ reluctance to benefit from gambling," the South Antrim MLA said.
"This explanation simply does not stack up particularly following the revelations that Orange lodges and other groups which had supposedly not applied for lottery funding did in fact do so.
"By contrast the same minister was responsible for cynically stopping the £50,000 Líofa Gaeltacht bursary scheme before last Christmas.
"This situation suggests that the community halls scheme has been operated on a differential basis with no regard for objective need criteria or equality.
"It is a further example of the DUP's cavalier approach to management of public finances."
Mr Givan has previously branded criticism of the community halls scheme as “narrow-minded sectarianism”.
However, a recent equality screening document released by his former department revealed that officials expect it “to have a positive impact on people of Protestant religious belief and inferred opinion, in that it will go some way to addressing their previously unmet need for improvements to community halls”.
