UH/0680

Almost £1/2m allocated from Fund so far
BY: BARRY O'DONNELL

Nearly half-a-million pounds have been dispensed from the Omagh bomb fund to victims of the Market Street atrocity, the fund chairman revealed yesterday (Wed).
Brian Oliphant said that to date 208 people had been allotted financial assistance amounting to £440,000 from the fund. This represents just over half of the total amount of money raised thus far which currently stands at £866,000.
Despite the innumerable amount of fund raising initiatives which have been ,organised in the aftermath of the bombing, many of them high profile events, reports earlier this week indicated that the total eventually gathered will fall well short of expectations, with the sum of £12 million having originally been mooted when the fund was established.
Responding to these pessimistic forecasts, Mr Oliphant felt that such stories were 'unhelpful.' and had only been pieced together from 'bits of information some of which are not true'.
"We don't want to put people off or deflect from the work that the fund is doing. We are processing each case as fast as we can and so far we have dispensed £440,000 which is a sizeable amount of money," stated the fund chairman.
Mr Oliphant said that the fund committee were thorough in processing applications so as to ensure that the money dispensed went to those who were deserving of it and not, as he labelled them, 'hangers-on'.
He added though that the Omagh Fund was still encouraging victims to come forward to seek financial aid and said they had issued several appeals recently.
"In our November newsletter we asked victims to apply for help and I know that the Sperrin Lakeland Trust have made a similar appeal in their bulletin asking for those who merit financial help to contact us."
He continued: "We are committed to making further payments in certain instances of need before Christmas."
It is estimated that around £1 million has yet to be channelled into the Omagh Bomb Fund from various events. These include the Darren Clarke charity golf tournament which raised in excess of £300,000.
In addition substantial financial contributions are also still forthcoming via various other sources, including the GAA's benevolent fund, RTE's Late Late Show Appeal, and the proceeds from the 'Across the Bridge of Hope' CD, released on Tuesday.