UUP leader Jon Burrows hits back after Irish government refuses to apologise over Troubles misconduct
UUP leader Jon Burrows has hit back after the Irish government refused to accept guilt for "unjustified and unjustifiable” conduct during the Troubles, saying the Irish state “cannot forever ignore its role".
His comments came after Taoiseach Micheál Martin rejected calls for an apology, while Irish Foreign Minister Helen McEntee said she disagreed with the UUP leader's claims.
The exchange has reignited a perennial debate about the Irish government's role in the creation and apparent shielding of the Provisional IRA.
In 2012 the Northern Ireland assembly narrowly passed a motion calling on Dublin to apologise for its role in the creation of the IRA - which Dublin flatly rejected.
Westminster research has found the Irish state refused 97% of extradition requests for suspected terrorists from 1973 to 1997 – approving only eight out of 113 requests.
UUP leader Jon Burrows said that the Irish Government should state that its conduct during the Troubles was “unjustified and unjustifiable” - quoting the words of then prime minister David Cameron's 2010 public apology for the Bloody Sunday killings in Londonderry.
As the senior police officer in Londonderry at the time of the apology, he was present when Mr Cameron made the "courageous step towards reconciliation" he said.
He believes it is time for the Irish Government to make a similar gesture.
“I think they should make a major statement about the past,” he told the Irish Times. “I would love Ireland to say that some of their conduct during the Troubles was unjustified and unjustifiable. I think it would be seismic for our relationships … seismic for good relations.”
But asked about the UUP leader's call for a State apology, Mr Martin told RTE: "I wouldn’t accept that".
Mr Martin said that throughout "the terrible war that the Provisional IRA waged in this jurisdiction" in which garda and others were killed, the Irish Government had "fought tooth and nail against the Provisional IRA".
"That is not something we would be apologizing for."
Earlier, Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs Helen McEntee also rejected the calls for a State apology.
"I don't agree with his comments," she told RTE. "but I don't want to get into a back and forth on air".
Responding, Mr Burrows said he would continue to press the issue.
“In the weeks ahead, I will be meeting our Irish counterparts to discuss a range of issues, one of which is legacy,” he said.
"The Irish State cannot forever ignore its role in the Troubles. The refusal to extradite all but a handful of those terrorists who murdered and maimed innocent civilians from all backgrounds in Northern Ireland amounts, for many victims and families, to a denial of justice."
In 1969 the Irish Department of Justice wrote a "Secret" memo to the Irish cabinet, recommending that the Irish government "should promote an active political campaign” to split in the increasingly marxist Official IRA; The aim was to create a nationalist IRA that would only attack NI targets.
In 1993 former Irish Minister Neil Blaney told the BBC the Irish cabinet of his day had indeed helped the fledgling Provisional IRA.
He said: "We didn’t help to create them [PIRA] but we certainly would have accelerated by what assistance we could have given their emergence as a force."