Fermanagh IRA victims will tell the Taoiseach today that they are not asking him to apologise for republican murders, but rather for his government’s ‘failure’ to stop such blood-letting during the Troubles.
Stormont minister Arlene Foster, who is leading the delegation of Fermanagh border IRA victims to meet Enda Kenny today, emphasised that they are asking the Taoiseach to account for his government’s alleged failures.
A first such ground-breaking meeting took place last month when victims of the 1976 Kingsmills massacre in south Armagh met Mr Kenny and asked him to apologise for the same alleged Irish government failures. Leading their delegation, Stormont minister Danny Kennedy said they had “some disappointment” when Mr Kenny responded that he could not apologise for IRA actions.
But last night Arlene Foster made it clear the Fermanagh IRA victims had no interest in an apology from the Taoiseach for what the IRA did during the Troubles.
“These were attacks often planned from within the Republic of Ireland by people from the Republic, and returning there afterwards meant the terrorists were provided an effective ‘safe haven’,” she said.
“These victims are not asking Mr Kenny to apologise for the actions of the IRA, but for those of the Irish government who not only failed to put the necessary security measures in place to prevent attacks, but who refused to extradite terrorist suspects back to the United Kingdom to face justice.
“The spotlight has rightly been turned onto the actions of the Irish government during the Troubles and I would hope that Mr Kenny will be as forthright in giving answers as he has been in demanding them from the United Kingdom in many instances.”
Kenny Donaldson of the South East Fermanagh Foundation victims’ group will also be travelling with the victims today.
“People say that the border cannot be protected all the time,” he said. “Yet those who witnessed the efforts of the Irish authorities along the border during the Troubles remark upon the contrast between the failures to seal it against terrorism with the experience during the Foot and Mouth crisis in 2001 when the same border was effectively sealed like an envelope for several months.”
In September the Assembly passed a motion calling on the Irish government to apologise for its alleged role in creating the IRA. The News Letter reported how former Fianna Fail cabinet minister Neil Blaney had previously gone on record, saying of the IRA: “. . . we didn’t help to create them but we certainly would have accelerated by what assistance we could have given their emergence as a force”.
Fianna Fail declined to make any comment to the News Letter about the admission. A spokesman for the Taoiseach responded: “We are not in a position to make any comment regarding the views of individuals contained in any documentary.”