Ken Funston: Irish state connived with the British government to ignore all human rights of the victims and survivors of republican atrocities
I recently had the honour of speaking at an event in the House of Lords, organised by Lord Elliott and SEFF. The assembled audience included members of various parties from both houses in the Palace of Westminster, and other invited guests, including journalists and victims of terrorism.
The glaring omission was no representative of the Labour party. Considering the government were in the latter stages of putting their legacy legislation together in consultation with the Irish government, you might have expected they would have been interested in what we had to say.
Essentially, I was there to speak about the book I co-authored with Cillian McGrattan, ‘Protestant Memory on the Border’, but I had combined it with a discussion on legacy. The book, as in the title, centred around the testimonies of victims and survivors of republican terrorism.
The perpetrators almost always escaped back across the border after committing their foul deeds, feeling confident that they were in the safe haven of the Irish Republic. That confidence was further emboldened by the Irish government’s refusal to extradite the suspects due to their incorrect interpretation of the attacks as ‘absolute’ political offences (an absolute offence includes the likes of treason and espionage).
The IRA offences were often ‘relative’ offences, committed against ordinary people, thereby not meeting the political test. The Enniskillen and Tullyhommon bombs were obvious examples where, if the bombers had been identified and located, the Irish government would have refused to extradite them. Due to the southern government’s continual failure to extradite, many more people were to lose their lives, right up to 1997.
As we now know, the Belfast Agreement masked the many other shady deals between the governments and the parties; we were never meant to find out about them. The continual demand by Provisional Sinn Fein, supported by the Irish government, Blair acceded to Ahern’s request and put pressure on the UK Attorney General, Lord Williams, to assist in the secret ‘administrative’ amnesty, and to drop charges against IRA suspects. It was to be kept secret, meaning no legislation was required.
The arrest in London of John Downey in 2013 for the Hyde Park atrocity exposed that PIRA members should receive immunity from prosecution. On December 23, 1999, the taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, wrote to PM Blair demanding that any “outstanding warrants or any proceedings that may be subsequently contemplated” be shelved.
Downey walked free as he had received a letter from the PSNI stating he was not under suspicion for any offence, and the judge deemed prosecuting him would be an “abuse of executive power”.
Downey was later found guilty in a civil court. It transpired that a total of 187 republican terror suspects received these letters giving them a level of immunity, and despite subsequent statements saying the ‘comfort’ letters were worthless, they have not been tested in the courts.
Michael McDowell, who had been the Irish Attorney General at the time of the Belfast Agreement, stated in 2021 that “as far as this [Irish] state was concerned, a line was drawn across the page of historic Provisional IRA criminality in Northern Ireland.”
In plain terms, the Irish government had decided by the year 2000 that they had no interest or desire to prosecute any cases involving PIRA.
During 2018, I was part of a team from the victims’ group SEFF, conducting a consultation tour and presenting our views on the Stormont House Agreement. Whilst giving a presentation in Farmleigh House, Dublin, I was asked a question by a senior civil servant from the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs. In my response, I asked her if she had not addressed her point with the British government. She retorted that they could not possibly interfere in what essentially was “legislation from a foreign government”. I was shocked by this statement considering the Irish government always wishes to be front and centre in engagements with the British government in all NI matters.
The Stormont House legislation was never endorsed, with little movement on legacy other than attempts to prosecute retired members of the security forces. It was a benign state of affairs that suited the Irish government. That was to change when the then UK Conservative government attempted to introduce controversial legislation in 2023.
The Irish government lodged an inter-state case against the UK in the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR); their faux outrage was hiding the uneasy balance they were juggling in Dail Eireann with Sinn Fein.
Maybe we should re-examine the basis of the Irish application to the ECHR. They were taking a case against the British government which was attempting to ‘draw a line under the past’.
This was an Irish government that for 30 years allowed its state to be used as a safe haven for terrorists and refused to extradite them despite it being in breach of European legislation.
Its failure to arrest, prosecute or extradite these people resulted in many hundreds of deaths in Northern Ireland, facts that should have resulted in the British government taking a case against the Irish. It is an Irish state that 25 years ago connived with the British to ignore all human rights of the victims and survivors of the republican atrocities. The irony is totally lost on the Irish as they attempt to purvey this sense of being outsiders during a generation of terrorism.
We have repeatedly asked the Provisional leadership for an unequivocal apology for their actions, whilst their retort is ‘they had no other choice’. However, should we expect more from the British and Irish governments which persist with sham politic; new legislation, same result, nothing but frustration whilst the Provisionals continue on their path of revisionism.
l ‘The Northern Ireland Conflict on the Margins of History: Protestant Memory on the Border’ is co-authored by Ken Funston & Cillian McGrattan