First Minister's Dunmurry 'terror' comment prompts questions from Unionist parties over Provisional IRA attacks
Comments by Michelle O’Neill in which she described the weekend bomb attack on a police station as “terror” has led to unionist calls for the Sinn Fein leader to condemn Provisional IRA violence in the past.
The Ulster Unionist leader accused Sinn Fein of having a “selective memory” – highlighting similar attacks carried out by the Provisional IRA, an organisation the republican party “supported and celebrated for decades”.
DUP MLA Jonathan Buckley welcomed the First Minister’s use of the word terror, but said she must be consistent – citing an IRA attack in the area linked to hunger striker Bobby Sands.
The first minister said on Wednesday that there is no question about her party’s support for policing – accusing the DUP of “spoofing” on the issue. Ms O’Neill told reporters that the “clear and consistent message should have been heard across all of the political spectrum. They said no to the people who went and took that terror to the people of Dunmurry on Saturday night”.
Jon Burrows said: “If this car bomb caused terror today, and it did, then what does she say to every family across NI who lived through hundreds of car bombs carried out by the organisation her party supported and celebrated for decades? The outrage is welcome. The selective memory and mixed messaging is not. Until you are part of the solution you are part of the problem.”
He said SF has “dragged their heels on supporting policing” – which he said had corroded police morale and “their community’s trust in policing”.
Mr Buckley said Michelle O’Neill is right to say that those responsible for the bomb in Dunmurry brought ‘terror’ to the streets of that community, but that standard “must be applied consistently”.
“In 1976, another bomb was planted in Dunmurry and Bobby Sands was linked to that attack. If planting a bomb in Dunmurry in 2026 is terrorism, then planting a bomb in Dunmurry in 1976 was also terrorism. The question for Michelle O’Neill is straightforward, does she recognise that Bobby Sands was involved in an act of terror? Republicans cannot continue with this selective morality where today’s bombers are condemned, but yesterday’s bombers are glorified”.