UDA recruiting kids says Dallat

The SDLP member said the loyalist group was also intent on stepping up intimidation, increasing sectarianism and "making life a hell for Catholics".

He said the UDA was paying members of Ulster Young Militants to paint hate slogans on the walls in Coleraine.

Mr Dallat has urged the Independent Monitoring Commission to investigate the activities of the group.

“These young impressionable people are being paid by the godfathers to go out and paint the town with sectarian messages of hate often directed against individual Catholics who have got in their way”.

He said the IMF, which monitors the activities of paramilitary bodies, had previously reported that the UDA was still involved in assaults on people alleged to be drug-dealing or involved in anti-social activity.

"The IMC also accepted that some members remain involved in a range of serious crime, including drug dealing, intimidation and extortion," he said.

"A new report is due out next month and I sincerely hope that it will focus on Coleraine and the totally unacceptable level of criminality taking place, much of it attributable to the UDA with long-term consequences for peace and reconciliation.”

Mr Dallat went on to claim: "Central to this is the recruitment of young people, some hardly more than children, who have been sworn in at an address in the Ballysally estate where the UDA have retained a grip on ordinary people who want to see the tail end of them both in that estate and elsewhere in the town.”

However Coleraine deputy mayor, DUP councillor Sam Cole, rejected the claims.

"These claims are spurious and sad,” he said.

“At a time when Coleraine Borough Council is busy implementing Community Cohesion projects to enhance good community eelations, John Dallat has chosen to denigrate and tarnish the town's image with these Walter Mitty type unsubstantiated claims.

“The intelligence and security agencies are clearly concerned about the growing dissident Republican threat and the IMC will no doubt be focusing their resources on investigating their activities in the borough.”

Councillor Cole said Mr Dallat’s suggestion that Coleraine is “a hell for Catholics” was nothing further than the truth.

“Coleraine is a place for everyone working towards a shared and prosperous future, regardless of religious conviction".

David Malcolm, Regional Secretary for the UPRG in North Antrim and Londonderry, also rubbished Mr Dallat’s comments.

“John Dallat’s assertions today are nothing more than the ramblings of a worried man who has an election to fight next year.

“Loyalists are quite used to the “Elliot Ness” ramblings of John Dallat who blames every ill of the world on the UDA, but the facts are that the graffiti seen in Coleraine are merely an anti social response to similar graffiti promoting the CIRA that has been seen across the rown in recent weeks.

“During this time, painted threats towards a serving Police Officer were also painted onto walls attributed to CIRA.

“John Dallat did not once condemn these threats and slogans.

“I have spoken to community representatives this morning from the area and they say that there is no paramilitary involvement in any area of Coleraine towards directing young people to paint childish slogans on walls and the UPRG would call on these young people to stop.

“John Dallat’s claim of recruitment by the UDA of children would be laughable if it wasn’t such a serious allegation. I have been assured that there is not - and has not been any recruitment by the UDA in any area of Coleraine as Mr Dallat has suggested and this extends to the UYM which has been inactive for many years.”