UH/1093

Mentally scarred 'denied help' from Omagh Fund
BY ADRIAN MULLAN

FOUR years after the bombing of Omagh, the fund set up to administer the donations made to the victims via the Omagh Fund is still the subject of some interest.
This week, Councillor Johnny McLaughlin, complained that people who had been seriously psychologically traumatised as a result of the blast hadn't received a penny from the Omagh Fund.
Mr McLaughlin claimed that one person who had been shopping in the area on the day of the atrocity was thrown several feet and landed at the back of a shop as a result of the blast. However, he said that despite that person having suffered serious mental trauma as a result of her ordeal, she had been rejected as a suitable case for payment from the fund.
"I want to know", said Cllr McLaughlin, "what is the criteria for applying to the fund, and is there a right of appeal if someone is turned down?
"There is £1.3 million pounds in that fund that hasn't been touched and yet there are people who've suffered shock and mental anguish and they are not entitled to anything."
The Ulster Herald contacted Sean O'Dwyer, the Chairman of the Board of Trustees which administers the Omagh Fund to put Cllr McLaughlin's concerns to him.
Mr O'Dwyer said that nobody was applying to the Fund at the moment but that in the past the board had used serious physical injury and or bereavement as the criterion for allocating the funds.
"We paid money to no-one who wasn't physically injured or member of a bereaved family."
There are, essentially two funds, the 'discretionary fund', from which payments were made to the injured and bereaved and the 'charitable trust'. The monies of the Charitable Trust do not go directly to individuals but to the traumatised community.
Indeed, the Omagh Trauma Centre is to receive £1 million from the Trust over the next five or six years. A further £250,000 was allocated to the Community House, £25,000 of which has yet to be paid. A further £50,000 from the charitable fund has been allocated for the erection of a permanent out-door memorial but has not yet been paid-out.
Mr O'Dwyer insisted that no money whatsoever, had been loaned from the Omagh Fund to any group or individual. Rather, an individual Trustee had given private funds to a group of people travelling to the USA in the aftermath of the tragedy.
He said that in the immediate aftermath of the blast the objective of the Omagh Fund was to get money to people as quickly as possible and that most of the seriously injured or bereaved got four different payments in October 1998, December '98, March '99, a larger one in July '99, and one in July 2000.
In total some £6,174,00 was donated and some £222,000 interest accrued. £4,916,000 went to the discretionary fund and £1,158,000 went to the charitable trust.
While the discretionary fund has not been wound-up it has only around £49,000 left to disburse.
The current Trustees of the Omagh fund are , Mr O'Dwyer, Dr Clifford McCord, Aughnacloy, the Duke of Abercorn, Mrs McCormack, Donegal. The former Chief Executive of Fermanagh District Council, Aideen McGinley, had been a Trustee but gave up the position when she became a Permanent Secretary in the Assembly.
A financial report from the Omagh Fund is due to be published next week.