NI rioters have drug debts cleared by paramilitaries, MPs told

Young people participated in rioting in Belfast to clear drug debts to paramilitary groups, MPs have heard.

"From what I've heard from young people, they can get up to £80 of drug debt cleared," Megan Phair, from The Stop Attacks Forum, said.

She was giving evidence to the House of Commons Northern Ireland Affairs Committee which is examining paramilitary activity.

Ms Phair referenced trouble at Lanark Way in west Belfast in April 2021.

Police officers were attacked, petrol bombs thrown and a bus burnt during the rioting, which was on a scale police had not been seen in years.

"That is the first time we have heard that," the committee's chairman Simon Hoare said in response to Ms Phair's evidence.

"It is shocking that is the tactics they [paramilitaries] are using," Ms Phair added.

"These young people are terrified. They don't have £50 or £100 but they can go out and riot.

"They are victims of exploitation and coercion."

The lobby group is made up of youth workers and clergy, amongst others, and campaigns against paramilitary shootings, beatings and intimidation.

The victims' commissioner, Ian Jeffers, is also giving evidence to the committee and is expected to say the presence of paramilitary groups represents the "most potent threat to the wellbeing of victims and survivors of the Troubles".

"We're 25 years after the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement and we don't yet have a clear road map for reconciliation," he told BBC Radio Ulster's Good Morning Ulster programme.

"We need not just political leadership, but community leadership.

"We've got to work out how we encourage that. When we do that we create an environment where the paramilitaries can leave the stage."