McCabe killers’ release - Republicans must end their deceits

In an ideal world, the prospect of unqualified peace and normality in the North in return for the release of the killers of Detective Garda Jerry McCabe would be a tolerable price — although grossly unpalatable — for most people.

To ultimately end decades of sectarian violence and to expunge the instruments of elemental terrorism with its attendant murders sometimes multiple bombings and mayhem, would be a prospect to be embraced.

It would be a culmination this newspaper could reluctantly endorse, although recognising the personal hurt it would mean for Anne McCabe and her family.

Unfortunately, we do not live in an ideal world and the case of the possible release of Det Gda McCabe's killers was born out of a deceit, which this newspaper exclusively exposed.

Since April, 1998, when the Irish Examiner revealed that their release was to be made a condition for the implementation of the Good Friday Agreement, the death of a garda in the line of duty has become the centre of an unseemly political tussle.

Sinn Féin utterly denied that the killers' release would be made a condition of the Agreement.

Four years ago Taoiseach Bertie Ahern declared unequivocally that those convicted of killing Jerry McCabe would serve the sentences handed down by the courts.

They were not, he asserted at the time, entitled to early release from prison under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement.

The highest court in the land, the Supreme Court, concurred. It adjudged that the killers are not so entitled, when it subsequently upheld a decision of the High Court in the case of two of them.

It is incontrovertible that the four men serving between eleven and fourteen years for his manslaughter do not qualify for early release, but Sinn Féin now demands their freedom.

To accommodate that demand, the Taoiseach has said they will be released under different legislation, insisting that their release must be part of a package that would deliver an abiding peace to the North.

It is perplexing, to say the least, that the possible future peace of the North should now hinge on the status of four men convicted of the manslaughter of a guard in the course of an abortive post office raid.

Even if people could accept that one event would follow the other, Minister for Justice Michael McDowell yesterday raised some interesting points.

He said that the Government would not consent to their early release until there was a pre-condition that the IRA would cease all paramilitarism, criminality and carry out complete decommissioning.

While decommissioning can be verified, how can the Government possibly contend that paramilitarism and criminality will disappear as a social blot on the North's landscape?

The one may, or may not, eventually surface under another guise but to suggest that criminality by redundant IRA members will cease, is to stretch gullibility to an inordinate extent.

The killing of Jerry McCabe resulted from criminality on the part of Republicans.

It flourishes in his own jurisdiction, so it is difficult to see how Mr Ahern could accept promises that it would cease in another at the stroke of a pen.

The Garda Representative Association wants an urgent meeting with the Taoiseach and he would be well-advised to listen to their views.

Bringing an enduring peace to the North is a prize to be coveted, but political expediency based on questionable motives will not achieve it.