Paul Quinn’s mother: Conor Murphy can remain minister if he gives IRA names to PSNI

In 2007 Paul Quinn, 21, from Cullyhanna was lured to a Castleblaney barn seven miles from his home where he was set upon by around 10 men with metal and nail-studded bars and beaten for more than half an hour. Every major bone in his body was broken. He died a few hours later.

Earlier this week Paul’s mother, Breege Quinn, went public to once again reject comments by Stormont Finance Minister and Sinn Fein MLA Conor Murphy - made one month after the murder - that her son had been involved in criminality. After RTE this week unearthed original footage of his slur from the BBC, Mr Murphy finally issued an apology statement today.

However Paul’s mother had publicly rejected his comments in advance.

She told the News Letter, and other media outlets, she would only accept an apology “on national television, because that is where he made he allegation”.

“He is not fit to be in government,” she told BBC Radio Ulster’s Nolan Show. “Mary Lou [McDonald] should just step him down.”

However, in a Twitter message on Wednesday night, Mrs Quinn said: “We accept Sinn Fein’s apology – but want Conor Murphy to give IRA names to gardaí. We regret it took 13 years of pain and election pressures for the apology to come from Sinn Fein.”

Earlier on Wednesday she had told the PA news agency: “I would like Conor Murphy to stand down. But if he comes out, gets justice for Paul, and tells the Gardai and PSNI the names of the people he spoke to, and we see the people who murdered Paul up in court and in jail, then Conor Murphy will be entitled to stay in his position.”

Mrs Quinn said Mr Murphy should tell investigators north and south of the border the names of the IRA members who he said told him the organisation was not involved in the murder.

“We could have justice tonight if Conor Murphy decided to give it to us,” she said.

Ahead of the southern general election polling this weekend, Sinn Fein President Mary Lou McDonald told RTE on Monday that Mr Murphy had not linked Mr Quinn to criminality. However back on RTE for the Prime Time leaders’ debate 24 hours later, she was confronted with the quote Mr Murphy made to BBC NI Spotlight in 2007: “Paul Quinn was involved in smuggling and criminality and I think everyone accepts that.”

Ms McDonald responded that “those things should not have been said” and that “Conor withdraws them and apologises”.

Mr Murphy declined an invitation to appear on BBC Talkback yesterday, instead issuing an apology statement about 4pm.

“I very much regret comments I made in the aftermath of Paul’s murder which have added to the grief felt by the Quinn family,” he said. “I apologise for those remarks and I unreservedly withdraw them.”

Responding to calls for Mr Murphy to stand down as minister, however, Mrs McDonald told the PA that there was “absolutely no question of that”.

In 2007 Mr Murphy said he spoke to the IRA and was satisfied they were not involved in the murder. He was himself jailed for IRA offences in 1982.

Asked what she thought Mr Murphy’s motivation was for the slur, Mrs Quinn replied: “He was trying to cover up for the IRA.”

The real reason Paul was murdered, she added, was because he had repeatedly fought with the son of a local IRA leader. The youth’s mother threatened Paul with a hammer and said he would be found in a black bag, she said. “He was murdered one month later”.

Mrs Quinn rejected suggestions she was being used by the media, stating that she decided “to contact a number of radio stations” after she heard a Sinn Fein councillor say on Sunday that an election was not the time to campaign for truth and justice.

Gerry Adams made similar claims in 2007: “There was no republican involvement whatsoever in this man’s murder...it is fairly obvious to me that this is linked to fuel-smuggling and to criminal activity.”

Political parties from across the spectrum today variously called on Mr Murphy to apologise publicly to the Quinn family, give names of his IRA contacts to the police – and to step down as finance minister.

UUP MLA Doug Beattie called on Mr Murphy to apologise publicly for calling Mr Quinn a criminal and to give names of IRA men he spoke to about the murder to police; “And if he won’t go to the PSNI, then they need to go to him and question him.” He added that “every day that Conor Murphy remains in office is an insult to the Quinn family”.

TUV leader Jim Allister said Mr Murphy and Sinn Fein denied the slur for years. “Now, just 24 hours after the Sinn Fein President again denied Murphy ever spoke as he did, Ms McDonald on live TV has been spectacularly caught out and forced to admit Murphy’s slur and apologise for it.” Mr Murphy has been “irredeemably exposed as unfit for office” and should resign, he added.

DUP MP Sir Jeffrey Donaldson said his party leader lobbied Capitol Hill about the murder last year. He too said Mr Murphy should make a public apology. “All information should also be given to the police so the perpetrators can be brought to justice,” he said.

SDLP Leader Colum Eastwood also called on Mr Murphy for “a public apology” and to go to police with the names of the IRA members he spoke to about the murder. “There was a calculated conspiracy to heap further pain on the Quinn family to justify a horrendous murder,” he said.

UUP leader Steve Aiken said that “in any normal society” a senior minister who failed to report details of criminal activity to police or who disparaged a murder victim “would either resign or be sacked”.

He called on Sinn Fein to reconsider its actions “providing Mrs McDonald is in a position to do that without resorting to the still extant IRA Army Council”.

South East Fermanagh Fundation (SEFF) which has a South Armagh Gateway support service delivered from Bessbrook also expressed its’ concern at the “deficit of accountability” which it stated is “prevalent” within Sinn Fein on matters of Provisional IRA terrorism and criminality.

Director of Services Kenny Donaldson stated: “On one hand we have the leader of Northern Sinn Fein attending a press event deemed to signal the need for further people from her own communal background to consider a career in Policing yet on the other hand we have Sinn Fein refusing to account for its’ words and actions in justifying, defending or explaining away the actions of the Provisional IRA and its’ members, whether in the circumstances of the murder of Paul Quinn or more broadly”.

“The two positions are not compatible and the organisation which continues to come under the oversight of the Provisional IRA’s ‘Army’ Council really is at a crossroads. There is a lack of credibility in the party’s position and this has been brought out in recent days through the floundering response of its President Mary Lou McDonald”.