The Republic of Ireland should be made to pay much of victim pension

An Open Letter to the Secretary Of State

Dear Secretary of State,

By now, you will be well aware that Sinn Fein/IRA and many others are adamant that Westminster should foot the full bill for victims pensions.

However, it was not the UK security forces and RUC who created most of the victims; it was PIRA and loyalist terrorists who hold that dubious honour.

Republicans slaughtered over 2,000 innocents, often using Libyan Semtex and weapons as well as those ‘donated’ by Catholic Irish Americans.

It is an established fact that the Republic of Ireland (RoI) not only armed IRA terrorists at the outset of the ‘Troubles’, but acted as a rogue state throughout.

They allowed PIRA to use their sovereign territory as a secure base to store guns and bombs, train and to mount many of their bombing and shooting attacks. They also allowed them to conduct thinly disguised ethnic cleansing attacks along the border.

Furthermore, they harboured terrorists like Father Ryan and refused to extradite republicans like Dermot Finucane and Rita O’Hare, who were wanted to face the courts.

In view of this the RoI should be made to pay a huge part of the pension fund and the NIO must now instigate proceedings, using international courts, if necessary, to compel them to do so.

We also know that the Catholic Church will have to pay compensation to the victims of sex abuse and very recently there is a demand Scottish football teams must also pay compensation for historic sex abuse.

It follows that the very wealthy republican movement, like the Catholic Church, must be made to pay for the pensions of victims of IRA terrorism.

The NIO should lead on this and if they do not then it is clear that they are failing the victims of terror as well as perpetuating the myth that the UK government were the ‘bad guys’ thus assisting the PSF/PIRA in its history rewrite project.

Tom Nash, Derriaghy

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