State Papers: Minister feared retaliation over failure to prosecute republican terrorist Dessie O'Hare

British prime minister Margaret Thatcher had also expressed her anger to the Irish authorities about not using the legislation to prosecute Dessie O’Hare, pictured.

A senior government minister expressed fear in 1980 that a failure to provide clear and speedy decisions on whether or not to prosecute suspects for offences committed in Northern Ireland could “result in bombs in Border towns on our side or in Dublin".

State papers show the minister for justice, Gerry Collins, expressed his concern to taoiseach Charles Haughey about the potential impact of a decision by the DPP not to prosecute well-known paramilitary figure Dessie O’Hare for the attempted murder of a prison officer in Co Armagh the previous year.