Unionists react to Gerry Adams funnelling BBC compensation to republican prisoners' group

The former Sinn Fein president has now been paid €100,000 (£84,000) in defamation damages over an allegation that he gave the go-ahead for an IRA murder.

The DUP, UUP, and TUV have all now issued statements denouncing how he has distributed that money.

The BBC lost a defamation case earlier this year after Mr Adams took them to court over a 2016 episode of its ‘Spotlight’ programme and an accompanying online story.

They contained an allegation that Mr Adams sanctioned the killing of former Sinn Fein official Denis Donaldson.

Mr Adams denied any involvement.

In May, a jury at the High Court in Dublin found in his favour and awarded him €100,000 in compensation.

The BBC, which was found by the jury not to have acted in good faith nor in a fair and reasonable way, was also ordered to pay the former Sinn Fein leader's legal costs, potentially in the order of millions.

In the past, Mr Adams has said he will never “disassociate” himself from the IRA.

Today it was confirmed that the BBC has paid out the compensation money.

Johnsons Solicitors, which represented Mr Adams, said that, as part of this, a donation has been made to a support group for republican prisoners and their families called An Cumman Cabhrach.

Other donations have been made to “UNICEF for the children of Gaza”, local GAA organisations, the Irish language sector, “homeless and Belfast based-youth, mental health and suicide prevention projects”, and others.

Mr Adams has called these “good causes”.

It does not appear that An Cumman Cabhrach has a webpage.

There is no organisation of that name registered with the NI Charity Commission, nor its southern equivalent.

Nor is it to be found on Companies House, the official UK register of firms, or its Irish equivalent.

The name ‘An Cumman Cabhrach’ does appear in a number of stories from the mid-1980s by the Christian Science Monitor, which described a body of that name as being a “group in Dublin that receives Noraid funds”.

It said the name means “the Dependents' Fund” in English, and it listed now-dead Belfast IRA commander Joe Cahill as one of its trustees.

UUP MLA Robbie Butler said: “The suggestion that this payout could now be channelled towards republican prisoner groups will cut deeply with innocent victims of IRA violence.

“For families who have already borne immeasurable and irreparable pain, the knowledge that their licence fee contributions have ultimately funded a six-figure sum for Gerry Adams – and may now be used to support those who inflicted such suffering – will feel like an act of cruelty layered upon their loss.

“It reinforces a sense of injustice and will cause fresh anguish to those who have already endured more than enough.”

DUP MP Carla Lockhart said: “It is worth repeating that the decision of the Dublin jury related to a specific allegation broadcast and published about Gerry Adams.

“The payout of damages once again highlights the serious questions about how the BBC found themselves in a situation where allegations were insufficiently evidenced.

“As a result licence-fee payers are now indirectly funding the operation of a republican ex-prisoners organisation.

“Most right-thinking people would use significantly different language to describe such a group than calling it a ‘good cause’.

“Rather than the ‘needs’ of those who were convicted of their crimes, we as a society should focus on the innocent people who suffered at the hands of the very people represented by this group.

“The prisoners were released early, but the suffering of victims continues today.”

Sammy Morrison, the TUV’s legacy and policing spokesman, and its press officer, said: “Gerry Adams’s decision to donate part of his winnings in the BBC case to An Cumann Cabhrach makes a mockery of IRA victims.”

He pointed to the connection with “evil terrorist” Joe Cahill, adding that Cahill was involved in the Bloody Friday massacre of 1972, killing nine.