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A campaigner for a pension for the worst injured Northern Ireland conflict survivors has died before the measure was introduced.<\/p>\nA campaigner for a pension for the worst injured Northern Ireland conflict survivors has died before the measure was introduced.<\/p>\n
Paddy Cassidy, aged in his late 70s, suffered life-long pain after being shot in the spine by the UVF while close to his home in the Oldpark area of Belfast in September 1971.<\/p>\n
Alan McBride, from the Wave injured group support organization, said most of the severely injured had serious underlying health conditions due to life-changing injuries and were at an increasingly vulnerable age.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cIt\u2019s a constant fear that the news will come as it did today that we have lost another friend.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat it should happen when the Victims Payment Scheme that Paddy campaigned for is deadlocked makes it even harder to take.\u201d<\/p>\n
Plans by Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis to publish the latest draft guidelines on the Troubles pension were put on hold earlier this month.<\/p>\n
Sinn F\u00e9in has said the guidelines discriminate against former prisoners.<\/p>\n
The NIO and the DUP have accused republicans of blocking the payments by refusing to nominate Stormont\u2019s Justice Department to oversee the scheme.<\/p>\n
Mr Cassidy died suddenly on Monday morning.<\/p>\n
Mr McBride said: \u201cThere was not a day since his injury as a 28-year-old nearly 50 years ago when Paddy was free from pain.<\/p>\n
\u201cDespite that, his commitment to seeing recognition and acknowledgement of the great harm done to him and others like him was phenomenal.\u201d<\/p>\n
He was married with three children and working as a steel erector and rigger at a power station until the random loyalist gun attack which changed his life.<\/p>\n
He spent a year in a wheelchair and only regained his ability to walk with the aid of calipers and crutches.<\/p>\n
He was awarded \u00a327,000 compensation for disabilities which left him unable to work again.<\/p>\n
In an online video, Mr Cassidy described the impact of decades of at times \u201cnone-stop\u201d pain.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cI have prayed, I have cursed, I have done everything.\u201d<\/p>\n
He still went fishing, but said the impact of his injuries had been profound.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe things that I used to do I cannot do,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Northern Ireland\u2019s Victims\u2019 Commissioner has accused the authorities of adding insult to the injury sustained by thousands of conflict survivors by failing to introduce a pension scheme as scheduled.<\/p>\n
In a scathing critique of the UK Government and the Stormont Executive, Judith Thompson said victims had once again been allowed to slip down the list of priorities.<\/p>\n