IN this week’s edition of ‘Northern Ireland is absolutely not a normal society’ we have a woman speaking to the media about having to pay danger money to paramilitaries.

You’d be forgiven for thinking that nearly 30 years on from the Good Friday Agreement and peace, we’d have wriggled out from under the heavy boot of thuggish paramilitaries, but alas no.

Maybe when we are celebrating 100 years of peace we will be reasonably free of those who threaten and coerce ordinary people trying to live their lives here.

The BBC ran a story this week shining a light on a problem that our society has long normalised – protection payments to paramilitaries.

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They spoke to several business owners who said they had to make payments to shady characters ‘under duress and in exchange for agreeing not to hurt them or damage their property’.

One woman told the reporter that her friend feared they ‘would be killed if we didn’t pay’ before they had even lifted their shutters.

Another shop owner said that two men had told her ‘You’re a woman, you need........

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