Sinn Fein blocks UUP motion at Armagh Banbridge and Craigavon Borough Council to honour Greenfinches - female members of the UDR

The Ulster Defence Regiment was a primarily part-time regiment in the British Army that operated in Northern Ireland from 1969 to 1991.

According to NI: A Political Directory, 197 members of the UDR, and 47 former members, were murdered during the Troubles. Four of them were Greenfinches. In 2006 the Queen awarded the regiment the Conspicuous Gallantry Cross for "service and sacrifice".

At the end of last month Armagh Banbridge and Craigavon Borough Council passed a motion from UUP Alderman Barr to "recognise the significant contribution that women have made and continue to make in the defence of our nation". However it has now been revealed that Sinn Fein had lodged a "call in" legal challenge to the motion.

Alderman Barr said: “Sinn Fein’s spinning machine keeps on spinning. I am disappointed that in a cost of living crisis, they have called-in a Council decision to honour the Greenfinches of the UDR CGC. This will cost the ABC Council thousands in legal fees.

He added: "Are they so Misogynistic that Connelly House has forced the local Sinn Fein group to make a call in?

"Or is it because the cutting edge of the British Army which included the Greenfinches of the UDR CGC who stood up against the sectarian gangsters of the Provisional IRA and brought about the unconditional surrender of that murderous gang?"

However Sinn Féin Councillor Catherine Nelson countered that there was "absolutely nothing to celebrate in a regiment that was so discredited that the British government was forced to disband it".

She added: "“It is a matter of historical fact that members of the UDR were directly involved in sectarian killings and colluded in many others through the passing on of information on nationalists and republicans to loyalist gangs.

“Multiple reports, including reports by British state agencies, exposed damning levels of criminality within and cited the UDR as the ‘chief source of loyalist weaponry’.

“Many members of the UDR were also members of the UVF and the UDA and other loyalist paramilitary organisations."

The Irish Times reported last year that by the early 1990s, around 120 members or former members were in jail for serious crimes - 17 for murder.

It noted that a 1973 UK military intelligence document, 'Subversion in the UDR', said it was likely that perhaps 5-15% of UDR soldiers were or had been members of "Protestant extremist organisations".

UK inquiries into collusion by Sir John Stevens resulted in 10 UDR members being charged with having information likely to be of use to terrorists. It is not clear if any of them were convicted.

In 1993 six UDR soldiers were awarded undisclosed damages against the RUC as a result of their arrest on the orders of the Stevens inquiry.

Unionists argue that criminality in the UDR has been exaggerated in light of fact the 40,000 members served in the regiment over 22 years

The Troubles directory, Lost Lives, reports that republicans claimed almost 2,200 lives (58%) during the Troubles, loyalists 1,100 (30%), and the security forces, which by contrast generally operated within the law, 365 (10%). It finds the UDR was responsible for eight.