The murder of my prison officer Dad Brian Stack was sanctioned by SF-IRA

It has also been alleged to me that second Sinn Féin politician was involved in the plot.

My father was shot by the IRA in March 1983 but the organisation did not admit to carrying out the murder until 2013 after members of our family were taken by Gerry Adams to meet an IRA leader.

Several different and unconnected sources have alleged to me that the person who sanctioned my father’s murder is now a Sinn Féin politician. The same sources have also alleged to me that another SF politician was involved in planning the operation.

When our family got an admission from the IRA in 2013 that they had carried out the murder they tried to tell us that the operation was not sanctioned at the highest level and that an IRA member in a leadership role took it upon himself to order the attack.

I challenged both the IRA leader and Gerry Adams on this as it was my belief that the murder was sanctioned at the highest levels.

I believe that Sinn Féin have attempted to cover up this aspect of the case in order to protect those who now play a political role. People need to know the truth about SF.

Gerry Adams called this week for those involved in the recent murders in Dublin to be taken off the streets and put behind bars, so I ask would Adams say the same about those who gunned down my father in a very similar fashion on a Dublin street?

Sinn Féin-IRA seem to have one set of standards for those they gun down in the streets and another for those gunned down by criminal gangs, the fact is they are all criminal gangs doing exactly the same thing.

If Sinn Féin and Gerry Adams are to have creditability those in roles within the political party and who have information on my father’s murder must hand themselves in. SF claim to be a law abiding party and encourage citizens to cooperate with the gardaí while they themselves withhold information on the murder of a chief prison officer, they cannot have it every way.

In reference to Gerry Adams and Sinn Féin’s calls for the closure of Dublin’s Special Criminal Court, I say that this shows the real attitude and the contempt that Sinn Féin has towards the judiciary in this Republic and towards the ordinary citizens whom the court has been set up to protect. The court can never be abolished while the IRA is still in business and while SF still protects those within its organisation who are wanted for serious crimes.

Austin Stack, a prison officer in the Republic, was aged 14 when his father, the chief prison officer in Portlaoise, was shot and paralysed, from which he later died

• In response to these claims, Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams was yesterday reported in the Irish Independent saying:

“First of all, Officer Stack, Austin’s father, should never have been killed. That is without question whatsoever. I have met the Stack family. I have facilitated a process which was aimed at trying to give them some sense of closure.

“Having said that this man should never have been killed, that does not bring him back. The fact is, he was killed. What we have hopefully done now is put in place a process where no one else will be killed in those circumstances. I read Austin Stack’s statement. Anybody with any information, particularly the information he claims to have, give it to An Garda Siochana.”

Mr Adams added: “We (Sinn Fein) are not a criminal investigation (body). These issues sometimes get moiled in the turmoil of inter party politics. It isn’t up to us to investigate these matters - it is up to the Gardai to investigate these matters.”