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A TERRORIST was hired as a health and safety boss for a massive hospitals building project.

Robert Baird, 57, landed the job despite his key role in a Northern Ireland bomb plot.

He was caught smuggling enough explosives for 10 car bombs. One worker said: “It’s ironic that he is such a stickler for health and safety ­procedures, given that his previous job was to cause as much devastation and destruction as possible.

“He should never have got a job here.”

Baird was handed the job of enforcing safety rules for builders at the £842million New South Glasgow ­Hospitals – on the site of the city’s Southern General.

(Image: Phil Dye/Daily Record)

But in the late 1990s, he was being nurtured by the murderous Ulster Volunter Force.

Baird and Donald Reid, then 28, were caught with explosives, detonators and wiring in a car being driven to the ferry port in Troon, Ayrshire, in May 2002.

The sting happened after a massive surveillance operation, involving 100 police.

Both men denied being members of the UVF but pled guilty to helping the Loyalist group and plotting to transport explosives for terrorism.

Police found a bag of bullets, a ­balaclava and UVF paraphernalia at Baird’s home in Kirkintilloch, near Glasgow. They also found framed photos of terrorists.

Baird and Reid, from Kilsyth, ­Lanarkshire, were each sentenced to 11 years that September at the High Court in Glasgow and would have been eligible for parole in 2007.

Judge Lord Menzies told the men the explosives “could have been used to kill and maim innocent people and used to make up to 10 car bombs”.

The Record received several calls from workers among more than 2000 at the site after word got out on dad-of-four Baird’s evil past.

One said: “Baird was already a really unpopular guy but when people got wind of what he was up to before, it started to spread like wildfire.

“The UVF are a hated organisation, no matter if you are Catholic or ­Protestant.”

Another worker said: “This guy walks around with a clipboard, pulling people up for the smallest stuff.

“He has yellow cards, which are given to staff like ­warnings in football matches. He scatters them like confetti.

“I never had him down as a nice guy but I wouldn’t have thought he was a terrorist either. I’m pretty shocked to be honest.”

The Record asked the site’s main contractors, Brookfield Multiplex, for a explanation on Thursday evening, while Baird was in the middle of a shift.

After he sneaked out of a rear exit, it emerged that he had been forced to resign.

He is believed to have worked there for two years and was previously a health and safety officer for another company.

Brookfield said: “Mr Baird was not an employee of Brookfield Multiplex. Mr Baird was employed by a ­subcontractor.

“The subcontractor has confirmed that Mr Baird has resigned.”

When we contacted the Irish ­subcontractor who employed Baird our calls were not returned.

The publicly funded “superhospital”, scheduled for completion in 2015, will be the largest critical care complex in Scotland.

The main hospital will have 1109 en-suite beds and one of the country’s biggest ­emergency departments.