Ahern: Adviser met with Real IRA

Taoiseach Bertie Ahern confirmed tonight his former special adviser on Northern Ireland held a meeting with the political wing of the Real IRA.

Mr Ahern said Dr Martin Mansergh had contact with the 32 County Sovereignty Committee weeks before the Omagh bomb atrocity.

Answering questions in the Dáil, Mr Ahern also said that Belfast priest Father Alex Reid, who was involved in negotiations leading up to the Northern Ireland peace process, met the organisation.

He said: “I made clear in a Dáil statement on the 5th November last and also in a more extensive statement that I distributed on the same issue, that my special adviser at the time, Dr Martin Mansergh, did have contact with the 32 County Sovereignty Movement in 1998, some weeks before the Omagh atrocity with a view to persuading the Real IRA to cease their activities…

“I also said that following the Omagh atrocity Father Alex Reid was in discussion with that organisation with a view to bringing about the ceasefire that was announced in September 1998.

“I said that in this period Father Reid maintained contact with Martin Mansergh on this issue.”

Mr Ahern said that following the announcement of the ceasefire in September 1998, the Government communicated the message that the Real IRA should not only maintain their ceasefire but should disband and cease to exist by the end of that year.

He said: “The message would also have been communicated and reinforced directly by Dr Mansergh in December 1998… and in a follow-up meeting at the request of the Government to his earlier contact at a time when the Real IRA ceasefire had been in existence for three months.”

The Taoiseach said Dr Mansergh had put a report of his meeting on record at the justice department and his own department.

And he added: “I accept that it would have been better if I had mentioned it at that particular time but I do so now.”

Mr Ahern was responding to a question from Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny, after it emerged that the claims were due to be published in a book by a journalist.

Mr Kenny said the news does not send a good signal to the families of victims killed in the Omagh bombing.

Twenty-nine people and two unborn babies were killed in the attack.