FINANCE Minister Conor Murphy has been urged to pledge an initial sum of money from the Stormont budget to cover long-awaited payments to victims of the Troubles.
SDLP leader Colum Eastwood made the call as he accused the minister and Secretary of State Brandon Lewis of an "eleventh hour blame game" after they said each other bore responsibility for footing the bill for the victims' pension.
The Victims' Payment Scheme was given the green light at Westminster last year after Stormont failed to agree a way forward. Mr Murphy said it should therefore be paid for by London, while the British government said it should be funded through the block grant, together with the regional administration's "own revenue raising capabilities".
The Sinn Féin minister has voiced hope that Mr Lewis will meet executive ministers to discuss how the "significant costs involved" would be funded.
Stormont's Department of Justice has been designated to administer the scheme, which could cost an estimated £800 million.
Justice Minister Naomi Long yesterday said she would leave “no stone unturned” in an effort to resolve the issue and called on Westminster to engage with the executive
Alan McBride of theWave Trauma Centre said the executive and British government had treated victims "disgracefully".
Mr McBride, whose wife Sharon was killed in the 1993 Shankill bomb, said: "This is an absolute disgrace the way these people have been treated by both the Northern Ireland Assembly and also the British government."
Mr Eastwood said the row "serves no one’s interests" and that a longer term funding resolution needed to be found that included a "significant contribution from the British government".
The Foyle MP said Mr Murphy should make an "initial budgetary allocation to the scheme in the first instance" but that the British government "cannot absolve itself of responsibility".
UUP MLA Mike Nesbitt, who previously served as a victims' commissioner, said that the £150 million earmerked in the Stormont Agreement for legacy bodies could "provide a short-term way forward".
He said there was both a moral and legal obligation to provide the payment scheme.
The Victims' Payment Scheme was designed to compensate those severely injured in the Troubles.
Recipients are to get between £2,000 and £10,000 a year for the rest of their lives, with applications due to open in March.
