Spotlight reporter Declan Lawn
A SERIES of companies run by a Donegal Orange Order member have been set up to help keep property and land in Protestant hands in Derry and in Donegal.
The revelations were contained in a BBC Spotlight investigation last night.
The programme focused on David Mahon, originally from Donegal but now living in Kesh in Co Fermanagh.
East Derry MLA John Dallat said it was no secret that sales of property – particularly farmland – between religions was frowned upon in rural areas.
That was not new.
What was new however in the BBC Spotlight expose was the incredible number of companies – fed by Protestant investors – which had been established by Mahon.
We have now learned one of them – called after the Derry and Raphoe Protestant diocese – works across the Border between both counties to offer finance and interest free loans to Protestant farmers and businesses to prevent the assets going onto the open market and then, possibly, into Catholic ownership.
Mahon admitted some investors were members of the Orange Order.
For years, the Orange Order has been accused of controlling secretive “land funds” which have been used by individual Orange Lodges to protect Protestant land in their communities.
Orange Order Grand Secretary Drew Nelson admitted to the existence of such funds, and defended their use in an interview with Spotlight reporter Declan Lawn.
“There are some funds in existence which do that type of work and that is something that strategically we regard as one of the roles of the institution, to help Protestant communities that are in distress, particularly around border areas, or areas where Protestants are in the minority.”
When the reporter put it to Mr Nelson that the existence of such funds was in danger of artificially skewing the property market, he offered a rationale which some may find surprising: that proceeds of illegal diesel smuggling were flooding into the coffers of republicans in rural areas, and that this was itself resulting in an unfair playing field when it came to the purchase of land.
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