‘Forgotten Massacre’ — governments and media turned a blind eye

HOW can Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and other politicians here claim to be shocked at the O’Loan report into collusion between the police and loyalist murderers?

For decades the relatives of many of those killed by loyalists and the RUC — from nine-year-old Patrick Rooney in the 1960s to the victims of the Dublin/Monaghan/Dundalk bombings in the ‘70s, solicitor Pat Finucane in the ‘90s to Thomas Devlin in ‘05 — have pleaded to successive governments to take action on collusion.

Instead they (and the media and gardaí) have ignored their plight to such an extent that the worst murders of the Troubles became known as the Forgotten Massacre and it took a British TV programme to investigate it all of 20 years later.

Even worse, ministers from Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, PDs and Labour have spent hundreds of millions of taxpayers’ money in collaborating with the RUC special branch while all this collusion was ongoing.

It is alarming to think about how much of the information handed over to them — without reciprocation — was used to kill Irish citizens, North and South.

Even at this late stage, the Irish Government should demand of the British government, and all its relevant agencies, a full and complete disclosure of all aspects of collusion in Ireland.

And the Government here should also seek a firm guarantee that none of those involved is still participating in any way in policing and security, North and South.

Dr Seán Marlow

90 Willow Park Road

Dublin 11