THE DUP and Ulster Unionist Party last night hit back at accusations from Fianna Fail that unionists were trying to “rewrite history” in claiming that the Irish state helped birth the Provisional IRA.
A week ago yesterday the Northern Ireland Assembly passed a motion – by 47 votes to 46 – calling on the Dublin government to apologise for its alleged role in creating the PIRA and failing to clamp down on its attacks along the border.
The motion came four days after the sole survivor of the 1976 Kingsmills massacre and families of other victims met Taoiseach Enda Kenny. They too asked for an apology for his government’s alleged failure to clamp down on PIRA attacks from the south. However Mr Kenny refused, saying the Irish government could not apologise for IRA actions.
The day after the Dublin visit DUP leader Peter Robinson added further pressure on the Irish government, saying there is “a clear connection between what the IRA did in its infancy and the government of the Irish Republic”.
He added: “I think the Irish Republic would do well to look at its role and recognise that it was not the way it should have behaved in those days, and apologise for it because massive death and destruction followed.”
But Fianna Fail leader Michael Martin yesterday hit back at the collusion claims, which allegedly implicate three of his party members from 1969, cabinet ministers Charlie Haughey, Neil Blaney and Kevin Boland.
“There is merit in the DUP seeking an apology for IRA barbarity – but they are asking the wrong people,” Mr Martin wrote in the Irish News yesterday. “When I first heard about last Monday night’s DUP motion, seeking an apology from the Irish government for their role in creating the Provisional IRA, I was genuinely taken aback.
“At a time when an unprecedented economic and jobs crisis is causing havoc across Europe and is having very dramatic consequences in towns and cities across the north, I was not expecting the sort of political rhetoric I thought had been left behind when the DUP formed its governing partnership with Sinn Fein.
“The fact that the analysis and the language being used was so inaccurate, and so out of tune with the newly improved relationships between north and south, gave me pause for thought. What has happened that would allow otherwise responsible and civic-minded public representatives to ignore the historical facts and revert to an old language of confrontation, aggression and disrespect?”
His first conclusion was that the new Irish government “is no longer maintaining the sort of close and involved relationship with Stormont as the governments I was privileged to serve in always did”.
And his second was that “something profound is happening in the relationship between the DUP and Sinn Fein”.
If an apology is to mean anything, he said, it must be genuine and “it must be offered by those who hold moral responsibility for the actions involved”.
If the DUP wants to point a finger of blame for the emergence and activity of the Provisional IRA, he added “it needs to look much closer to home”.
He concluded that “this DUP effort to rewrite history and attempt to shift responsibility to Dublin, is a fiction too far”.
Last week deputy Irish prime minister Eamon Gilmore and Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams also rejected the Assembly’s claims that the Irish government helped create the PIRA.
But East Londonderry MP Gregory Campbell, who proposed the motion, yesterday hit back at Mr Martin’s comments.
“There has never been any reticence from Fianna Fail or other quarters in the Republic of Ireland in calling for inquiries into various events which occurred in the United Kingdom yet there is a blind spot to events much closer to home,” the DUP MP said.
“The facts speak for themselves, and the records clearly show the Dublin government’s plans to split the then Official IRA and arm the newly-formed Provisional IRA. This of course took place even before the outbreak of violence in Londonderry in August 1969. Irish government ministers at the time also admitted to the training which was given to the PIRA ‘with the knowledge of the whole government’.
“It is clearly embarrassing for Fianna Fail to have the spotlight shone on events in the Irish Republic during the late 1960s and later. The reaction now coming from south of the border is not one of a state which has nothing to hide, but one which is fearful of the truth actually being exposed.”
His party colleague DUP MP Jeffrey Donaldson told the News Letter yesterday that his party very much welcomes the current improved relations with the Dublin government.
“But I am very clear that during the discussions that took place throughout the peace process there was a clear expectation that the Irish government, as well as our own, would step up to the mark in examining issues that related to the past,” he said.
UUP Stormont minister Danny Kennedy, who led the Kingsmills delegation to Dublin, also took issue with Mr Martin’s comments yesterday.
“The Taoiseach undertook with sincerity to reflect on his meeting with me and the Kingsmills families,” he said. “I expect him to be true to his word. It is disappointing that some other leaders in the Republic are now seeking to play party politics with this issue for selfish gain. This is about victims, their families and an acknowledgement of failings on the Republic’s part – not party politics. I urge the Taoiseach to resist this pressure and do the right thing.”
His party colleague Lord Empey said that if the circumstances of the emergence of the PIRA had happened in the UK, the Irish government would press for explanations.
“If you transplanted this situation into the UK you would have the chancellor and secretaries for defence and local government in London helping organise the creation of a loyalist organisation in Northern Ireland,” he said. “If you turn it all around that way, just imagine what the Dublin government ministers would be saying now.”
Another UUP peer, Lord Laird, demanded an apology from Mr Martin, saying that he had insulted the Stormont government in which he served as a member from 1970-1973. “I call on Michael Martin to show me the proof of where the Stormont government discriminated against Catholics in legislation or administration in this period,” the UUP peer said. “I call on him either to engage in a public debate with me on this or to issue a formal apology.”
