Memoirs claim SF did not want another Bloody Sunday inquiry

IT HAS gone on 10 years, cost €250 million to date and raked up decades of painful history but a book now claims Sinn Féin never wanted a new Bloody Sunday inquiry in the first place.

In his memoirs published this week, Jonathan Powell, senior aide to then British prime minister Tony Blair says Martin McGuinness told him some time after the inquiry was set up that he couldn’t understand why Britain had agreed to it.

Mr Powell also claims Mr McGuinness conceded in private conversation with him that the inquiry was unnecessary and that “an apology from Britain would have been quite sufficient”.

The inquiry, headed by Lord Saville, was set up in 1998 to investigate the shooting dead of 13 unarmed protesters by British paratroopers in Derry on January 30, 1972.

An earlier inquiry, chaired and completed by Lord Widgery within weeks of the incident, caused outcry among nationalists when it concluded that many of the protesters were armed and intent on provoking confrontation.

Families of the victims campaigned with the support of Sinn Féin for a fresh inquiry and it was eventually established by the British government in the wake of the Good Friday agreement.

It received statements from 2,500 people, called 922 of them to give oral evidence and despite concluding hearings in 2005, has yet to produce its final report.

As time has dragged on, concerns have been expressed that its findings could undo some of the progress made in securing peace and establishing a power-sharing assembly in the decade since its work began. SF TD for Louth Arthur Morgan said yesterday, however, the party had not withdrawn its support for the investigation.

“We aren’t opposed to the inquiry but we had concerns about the structures of it,” he said.

“The British have a history of setting up inquiries in that way that’s fairly clear will bring them back a report that they will be quite comfortable with.”

Martin McGuinness himself gave evidence to the Saville Inquiry, admitting that he was the No 2 IRA commander at the scene, but refusing to disclose the names of other figures within the organisation.

Mr Morgan said the findings should be published as soon as possible, regardless of how unpalatable they might be.

“It’s important that the truth comes out,” he said.