The entire Stormont Executive is opposed to any funding going to the Ulster Defence Association, the North's Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness insisted yesterday.
Following the bitter row which erupted last week in the power-sharing Executive over Social Development Minister Margaret Ritchie's decision to withdraw a €1.7 million loyalist community regeneration fund, Mr McGuinness told the Assembly he believed she was absolutely correct to do what she did.
Mr McGuinness was responding to a question from Alliance Party leader David Ford.
Mr Ford had demanded a commitment from the entire Executive that it would end the funding which was linked to UDA disarmament.
Mr McGuinness said: "I think this is an issue that has been marked more by fiction than fact.
"Let me be absolutely clear. I - and I believe I also speak for everyone in the Executive - am totally and absolutely opposed to any funding whatsoever going to the UDA, whether they decommission their weapons or not."
Mr McGuinness added: "The funding introduced by [former Northern Ireland secretary of state] Peter Hain was irregular. It was wrong and it should never have happened.
"The decision by the Minister for Social Development was, in my opinion, absolutely correct," he said.
The €1.7 million (£1.2 million) Conflict Transformation Initiative was originally proposed by Mr Hain and the Northern Ireland Office.
It was offered before devolution in a bid to coax the UDA into giving up its weapons and abandoning paramilitarism and criminality for good.
Loyalists, however, have been at pains to stress the scheme was a loyalist community fund and that it would not go into the pockets of the UDA.
However, in August Ms Ritchie, who inherited the controversial fund, gave the UDA 60 days to disarm or risk losing the money after the loyalist paramilitary group was linked to violence in Carrickfergus, Co Antrim and Bangor, Co Down.
After the group failed to meet her deadline, the SDLP Minister announced last Tuesday that she was withdrawing the funding.
But in a dramatic twist, her decision was publicly challenged in the Assembly by Finance Minister Peter Robinson who accused her of breaching the ministerial code and leaving the Executive vulnerable to legal action.
A bitter war of words erupted between the two Ministers, with Ms Ritchie accusing the DUP deputy leader of trying to bully her.
The row deepened last Thursday when DUP and Sinn Féin Ministers backed Mr Robinson's assertion that minutes of the previous cabinet meeting showed Ms Ritchie was required to consult colleagues before acting.
They were opposed by Ms Ritchie and the two Ulster Unionist Ministers.
Ms Ritchie was yesterday briefing her Assembly scrutiny committee in a private session about how she had reached her decision.
- (PA)