Paramilitary protection money a 'stranglehold' on businesses
More than 25 years after the Good Friday Agreement, the practice of shops, salons and restaurants handing over their cash to paramilitaries in order to trade still exists. Payments are often taken under duress and are in exchange for agreeing not to hurt them or damage their property. BBC News NI has also heard of indirect ways of paramilitaries ask for money from businesses.One retailer said: "I have never been asked to pay for protection, but they asked me to contribute to the community activities which I did do".Long said high streets and construction sites are still paying paramilitaries to protect their businesses from threat of violence, in a "culture of fear"."The level of coercive control, the fear of reprisals, of intimidation, the fear that their business might be attacked or burned down, the fear that their family might be attacked."All of that puts a real pressure on people not to talk about this, so there is a culture of fear that's created."In 2024 a public awareness campaign called Ending the Harm was launched by the Executive Programme on Paramilitarism and Organised Crime (EPPOC).Part of the campaign saw the erection of billboards and posters across Belfast, highlighting organised crime and paramilitary activity and the impact it has on victims, their families, local communities and wider society.
