THE first minister has been criticised for inviting an IRA supporter, who has been jailed for inciting people to attack police officers, to tomorrow’s summit on sectarianism in Scotland.

Jack McConnell has asked Jim Slaven, the national organiser of Cairde Na hEireann, a republican organisation described by its critics as “dangerous”, to sit down with church leaders and football clubs to help to work out ways to curb religious hatred in Scotland.

Slaven is an active campaigner on behalf of the three IRA suspects sentenced in their absence to 17 years for aiding terrorists in Colombia.

Slaven, who claims that his organisation’s members have been targeted by Special Branch and MI5, was convicted in 1993 of organising an illegal march by the pro-republican James Connolly Society.

The event led to dozens of arrests and Slaven was convicted of inciting people to attack police officers and resisting arrest. He was fined £350 but was jailed for 14 days after refusing to pay.

Last night members of the Orange Order said that they felt deeply uneasy about sitting round a table with Slaven’s group. “They are a dangerous organisation. What else can you call a group that associates itself with republican violence, led by a guy who has been in prison for these activities,” said Ian Wilson, grand master of the Orange Lodge of Scotland.

Slaven claims his campaigning activities and criminal conviction were a matter of public record and that he, like the IRA, supported a peaceful resolution to religious conflicts.

He was invited to the summit because his organisation represents republican bands in Scotland and he said that he would approach this week’s talks in a positive manner.

The row came as new research suggested religious discrimination in the workplace is not a serious problem.

A study which analysed the salaries of Catholics and Protestants over a decade claims that the slight wage gap between the two groups can be explained by Catholics having poorer qualifications.

The Scottish Economic Policy Network’s research analysed more than a decade of data. Its author Harminder Battu, a senior economics lecturer at Aberdeen University, found that Catholic men earned £10.50 an hour compared with £11 among their Protestant counterparts. There was no difference in women’s earnings.

However, Battu said that a quarter of Catholic men had no qualifications, compared with a fifth of Protestants.

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