Gardai and jail warders colluded in killings by IRA, claim families
THE son of an Irish prison officer murdered by the IRA has claimed critical witnesses were not questioned and evidence related to the killing went missing.
Austin Stack, who has campaigned to find the gunmen who shot his father Brian Stack in 1983, said a minority of gardai and prison officers in the Irish Republic colluded with the Provos in the early 1980s.
He said botched investigations into atrocities were more than simply poor policing, and called for a public inquiry.
“It’s not just simply down to the poor Garda practices at the time, which is the answer we have been told,” Mr Stack said.
He was one of a number of people representing victims and survivors of the Troubles who raised concerns over legacy cases and truth recovery at the Oireachtas Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement.
Karen McAnerney, whose brother Terence McKeever was abducted and murdered by the IRA in south Armagh in 1986, said she had learnt that 16 items of evidence related to the killing had gone missing from Dundalk Garda Station.
She has taken her case to the Garda Ombudsman, but claimed the watchdog was working “hand in hand” with the Garda.
“Ten years down the line I still don’t have any answers,” she said.
Ken Funston of Innocent Vic“I
Austin Stack confronts Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams last year, and (right) Ken Funston of Innocent Victims United
tims United said Mr McKeever’s murder investigation was marked by bogus officers signing for evidence, and a vehicle, bloodstained anorak and cigarette butts going missing. He told the committee former gardai failed to co-operate with enquiries.
Mr Funston said another case in Donegal showed clear collusion by gardai. He said members of the force handed a list of names to the IRA which led to a murder and attempted murder.
“We need to see honesty from both sides of the border, not just
one side,” he told the committee.
Sitting alongside David Kelly, whose Irish Army father Patrick was murdered in an IRA kidnap in Ballinamore, Co Leitrim, in December 1983, Mr Stack said he believed collusion occurred in the Republic in the early 1980s.
Mr Stack said that as part of his work with the Independent Victims and Survivors Coalition he was aware of evidence log books going missing and unsuccessful attempts to find original fingerprints after the flooding of a Garda archive in Santry, Dublin.
do believe there was a very small minority of people in An Garda Siochana and Prison Service who aided and abetted the IRA at the time,” Mr Stack said. “I think that we need to tease these matters out in full public inquiry.”
Mr Kelly said his family got no support from the State following his father’s murder.
“It was all downhill. Three years later, in fact, we were living homeless on the streets of London,” he said.
The Independent Victims and Survivors Coalition told the committee that proposals for a truth recovery process, agreed in late 2014 between Stormont politicians and the Irish and British Governments, would stop well short of getting the information relatives need.
Mr Kelly said: “The idea of truth... it might not work in my case but if it gives anyone peace, closure or healing after these traumatic events in their families’ lives then it’s worth pursuing.”
Mr Stack — who confronted Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams over his father’s murder at a Press conference in Dublin in 2016 — said proposals under the Stormont House Agreement would not let victims meet or question terrorists or those giving information.
“In order for us to trust the process we need to be able to test and question the evidence. Being handed a report by a third party is not acceptable and is not truth recovery,” he said.