Stormont assembly debate brought a necessary focus on collusion between the Irish state and the IRA, but sadly Alliance diluted the motion

The Irish government has a record of publicly lecturing the UK on its failings in addressing allegations of state collusion.

In addition, senior Dublin government ministers have offered their support to families in Northern Ireland by calling for public inquires on behalf of nationalist victims of the British State.

The hypocrisy in this approach is stratospheric.

Dublin’s policy in addressing — or more accurately not addressing — many of its own acts and omissions that directly propped up the IRA’s ethnic cleansing campaign, mercilessly waged against border Protestants, is outrageous.

For years the Irish government blocked the extradition of terrorists to the UK.

It operated a porous border and provided a safe haven for fleeing gunmen and bombers.

It failed to address the presence on its territory of IRA training camps, bomb-making facilities and weapons caches, some of which were filled by Irish government ministers.

And yet the Irish state persists to this very day in blocking justice for victims of its collusion with republican terrorists.

My 23-year-old brother, Ian Sproule, was one such victim.

Irish republican terrorists murdered Ian — a Protestant civilian — in a hail of 41 bullets outside our family home near Castlederg.

There was a public outcry as Ian’s killing was the second murder by the IRA of a Protestant civilian in Castlederg in just eight months.

Within days one of its members produced a Garda file to the media alleging he was a loyalist paramilitary.

This false claim was made by the IRA in a warped attempt at justifying murdering Ian. But you can’t justify an action built upon a lie, and you can never justify murder.

The initial Garda-IRA collusion was the subject of a state-led cover-up. Dublin’s policy of obfuscation means the denial of justice for my brother continues.

We welcome the motion brought to the assembly by Diane Dodds MLA on Tuesday September 28, and appreciate the support pledged to it in the assembly chamber.

However it was disappointing that Alliance members saw fit to amend, and consequently dilute the original motion, without first consulting us, Ian’s family.

John Sproule, Derg Valley Victims Voice

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