Real threat to our security is republican paramilitarism - not the British secret service
Like most people of his particular persuasion, Mr Coffey is in characteristic denial as to the nature of paramilitarism, no doubt believing that IRA weapons decommissioning was genuine - and that the fascist thugs of Sinn Féin have been transformed suddenly into legitimate politicians.
Living in Co Dublin, I’m sure he doesn’t run into many paramilitaries or witness the kind of gun crime that has proliferated in the Republic since paramilitaries released from prison have turned their expertise to straightforward profit. The fact that Denis Donaldson was an MI5 agent working within an IRA cell at Stormont doesn’t mean the cell wouldn’t have been there whether Donaldson was on the payroll of the secret service or not.
We all know the IRA still exists as a terror gang, still recruits, still targets unionist politicians and members of the security forces, still has millions in criminal assets and the means to buy new guns.
MI5 did not create Stormontgate, and even if they did, the PSNI would be the last people they would tell. If anything, Hugh Orde is far too soft on republicans as he tries to get them to join the policing boards. The fact that a terrorist organisation exists means that MI5 (whose brief is counter-terrorism) will have agents working inside it.
While MI5 has indeed worked against the interests of democracy in the past (the plots against Harold Wilson and the Dublin and Monaghan bombings), any ‘threat’ posed by its contemporary activities is as nothing compared to the cancer of paramilitarism in Northern Ireland’s body politic - and, to a lesser extent, that of the Republic. There can also be no public inquiry into MI5’s recent activities so long as the cancer of paramilitarism exists and agents within paramilitary groups rightly have to be protected. In fact, its less a case of Bertie’s remarks and constant cuddling up to the Shinners that proves him on the ball when it comes to the PSNI as remarks like his (and Mr Coffey’s) and the constant appeasement of the IRA, which means that Fianna Fáil and anyone of that ilk can’t be trusted when it comes to defending citizens from terrorism in a part of the UK.
Which is precisely why unionists like myself no longer support the Good Friday Agreement. The war on terror begins at home.
Roger Cottrell
Queens University
Belfast
