I was abducted by IRA, reveals FG senator

FORMER Fine Gael TD Micheal Finucane has revealed he was once abducted by the IRA in Limerick over 14 years ago.

In an emotional speech to the Seanad last week, the Fine Gael senator said he was confronted by a three-man gang wearing balaclavas who forced him into the back of his car at gunpoint as he was about to attend a political function in the Co Limerick village of Croagh.

Mr Finucane claimed he initially believed the incident was part of a premature April Fool’s joke as it had occurred on March 31, 1990, shortly after he had become a newly-elected TD for the Limerick West constituency.

He recalled saying an act of contrition as he was forced to put a balaclava on his head back-to-front.

“I was thinking of Billy Fox who had been murdered near the North of Ireland and did not know what would happen to me,” he remarked. “I was absolutely petrified and the men were accusing me and all politicians of being collaborators.”

At one point, Mr Finucane believed one of the gang was about to set fire to his car as he was holding a petrol container in his hand. He was eventually released on the roadside about a mile outside Rathkeale, Co Limerick. Mr Finucane subsequently learnt his abductors went on the same night to set fire to a business premises in Rathkeale. The gang later conveyed a message of apology to the politician and his family.

Although the incident was reported by local media at the time, Mr Finucane broke a 14-year silence on the issue last Wednesday evening during a debate on the Northern Ireland peace process in the Seanad.

Many senators expressed surprise at learning of their colleague’s 20-minute abduction by IRA paramilitaries a few miles from his home in Newcastlewest, Co Limerick.