Terror victims reject claims from Sinn Fein’s Mary Lou McDonald that IRA no longer exists

They were speaking after Ms McDonald rejected Garda Commissioner Drew Harris’ agreement with the PSNI, that the IRA Army Council still oversees both Sinn Fein and the IRA.

The issue has made headlines after Sinn Fein topped the poll in the recent southern general election and is now one of the top three parties vying to form a Dublin government.

The PSNI has repeatedly gone on record in recent months to say that its assessment that the IRA Army Council still oversees Sinn Fein and the IRA has not changed since an official government report in 2015.

The report stated that Sinn Fein continues to be overseen by the IRA, which although much reduced in scale and “committed to the peace process”, still has “specific” departments and “regional command structures”, gathers intelligence, retains weapons and has been involved in “isolated incidents of violence, including murders”. The News Letter reported this month that IRA members have been linked to 26 murders since the Good Friday Agreement.

On Friday Mr Harris said his view of the IRA was in line with the UK’s. “I am aware of the Police Service of Northern Ireland and British [MI5] security service’s assessment and we do not differ from that view,” said Mr Harris, a former PSNI officer whose father was murdered by IRA.

Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald responded over the weekend that “the war is over”. Asked in Co Louth if the IRA still existed, she said: “No it does not, so far as I am aware, no it does not.”

But Cullyhanna woman Breege Quinn, whose son was beaten to death by IRA members in 2007, challenged her comments. “We know that they [IRA] still existed in 2007 when Paul Quinn was beaten to death, because Conor Murphy told the public he had ‘received assurances’ that the IRA were not involved, and he obviously believed this, even if we didn’t” she said.

Austin Stack, whose father Brian was shot by the IRA in 1983, issued a similar challenge. His father was chief prison officer at the high-security Portlaoise Prison when he was shot.

He said that Mary Lou McDonald was riding out the media storm using guidance from a “Provo training manual”.

“The hear no evil, see no evil’ doctrine doesn’t wash, I met the IRA in 2013” he added, speaking about a meeting arranged by Gerry Adams. Sinn Fein has not offered any response to the comments.

However former Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams has used his blog to hit back at “the myth” of “shadowy figures” running the party. Those wrongly accused as such, he said, include Ted Howell, Padraic Wilson, Marty Lynch, Sean Murray and Bobby Storey. But apart from Mr Storey, who is unwell, all of them played key roles in the New Decade New Approach agreement, he said. All have held senior public and elected party positions and many have had “long and fruitful relationships” with senior Irish and British ministers and officials as they have charted a course from conflict, he added.

But UUP Justice Spokesman Doug Beattie said that if Sinn Fein – under the IRA Army Council – gets into government in the south, it will have “profound implications” for intelligence sharing with other European nations.

“Instead of trying to undermine Drew Harris or anyone else who asks a question about the links between Sinn Fein and the IRA, they should ask themselves why is the Provisional IRA Army Council still in place and directing Sinn Fein strategy over 20 years after the Belfast Agreement?” he said.

“Mary Lou McDonald can continue to duck and dive, but the questions will still keep coming until she and others in Sinn Fein recognize that the continued justification and glorification of the IRA is abhorrent and totally wrong. In what other Western European democracy would it be acceptable for a political party to have its strategy directed by a proscribed terrorist organisation?

”Mary Lou McDonald’s comments that the IRA have gone away, left the stage, no longer exist, simply do not have credibility. If it did, then who did Gerry Adams bring Austin Stack to meet in 2013?

“The then Sinn Fein President said it was the Provisional IRA. Also, who did Conor Murphy meet when he said he met the IRA following the murder of Paul Quinn in 2007, and who organised the so called veteran republicans when they fired over the coffin of Peter ‘Pepe’ Rooney, the PIRA member, in 2019?” If Sinn Fein get into power in Dublin it will have “profound implications” for Irish intelligence sharing with European states, he added.

Sinn Fein was invited to comment.