Shock as Sinn Féin’s Pádraig Mac Lochlainn concedes RUC officer killing was “a duty”.

Thursday 5th, 14:47pm

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IMMEDIATE: Thursday 5th December 2013

Shock as Sinn Féin’sPádraigMac Lochlainnconcedes RUC officer killing was “a duty”.

Sinn FéinTD Pádraig Mac Lochlainn, Solicitor John McBurney, Fine Gael TD Charlie Flanagan and Sunday Times Political Correspondent Sarah McInerney appeared on ‘Tonight With Vincent Browne’ to discuss the Smithwick Tribunal report and Sinn Féin’s stance on the 1989 RUC officers’ killings.

Vincent Browne questions Sinn Féin’s Pádraig Mac Lochlainn on the two RUC men who were murdered in cold blood.

Click here to catch up on the ‘Tonight With Vincent Browne’ which aired Wednesday 4th December

‘Tonight with Vincent Browne’ airs Mon – Thursday at 11pm on TV3.

There was shock on Wednesday night as PádraigMac Lochlainn, Sinn Féin TD and party spokesperson on Justice, seemed to defend the killing of two RUC officers in 1989 as an act of war. Speaking as part of a four person panel on TV3’s Tonight With Vincent Browne, his comments followed those of the Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams in DáilEireann earlier that day.

The below are some excerpts from last night’s programme:

When asked by Vincent Browne if he felt the IRA personnel who murdered the two officers had “a duty” to do so, Mac Lochlainn said:

“I believe that the IRA were fighting a legitimate war. I believe that they were young men and women who had suffered at the hands of the RUC, who policed an apartheid sectarian Orange state. That is the reason why we no longer have an RUC.”

Defending his position, Pádraig Mac Lochlainn went on to say:

“Earlier today, Mr McBurney referred to the IRA as terrorists. My father was an IRA man. My father was a young man, like thousands of others who joined the IRA. He spent nine years in English jails. I can tell you Mr McBurney, my father was no terrorist. So, many families are hurt by the conflict, many families need to have answers.”

Further on into the heated panel discussion Mac Lochlainn said:

“I believe that they had a duty as much as Michael Collins and the IRA and the war of Independence, as much as Pádraig Pearse, James Connolly. Every generation of Irish people who stood up to oppression and the young Irish men and women in the six counties who stood up to oppression had a right to take a war in the absence of political leadership.

“When political leadership finally came, thank God, those days are over. See that’s the context in which this happens. Mr McBurney will present one side as angels and saints. The RUC were an Orange sectarian state enforcer. They harassed and harangued and oppressed the nationalist people…”

Vincent Browne:“So there was a duty to murder these two people?”

PádraigMac Lochlainn: “In a war situation, the same as the old IRA, who killed almost 500 RIC members back in the war of Independence…”

Vincent Browne:“I think a lot of viewers will find it quite chilling that you think there was a duty to murder these two people..”

Pádraig Mac Lochlainn: “I believe that the IRA volunteers and the two senior RUC men Harry Breen and Bobby Cannon, who were killed, were all caught up in a profound tragedy. There were no goodies or baddies. All of them were failed politically. I will not stand back and let my father be vilified…”

Vincent Browne: “Don’t mind your father. Your father had nothing to do with the issue we’re talking about now”

PádraigMac Lochlainn: “Yes he did, he was an IRA man. He had everything to do with the issue.”

Vincent Browne: “We’re talking now about your contention and Gerry Adams’ contention that there was a duty to murder these two people”

PádraigMac Lochlainn: “I believe that the IRA war was a tragedy but I believe that the men and women of the IRA, deserve the same respect and stature as the members of the RUC, the UDR, and the British. They were all human beings with families who were caught up in a tragedy. That’s what I believe.”

Vincent Browne: “You believe there was a duty to kill Harry Breen, who came out of the car, that was surrounded by IRA men, waving a handkerchief, there was a duty to murder that defenceless man?”

Pádraig Mac Lochlainn: “What I believe is that the RUC were part of a state apparatus that oppressed the nationalist people in an Orange state.”

When pushed again by Vincent on if he felt it was a duty, Mac Lochlainn conceded: “Every soldier and combatant in a conflict, yes, has a duty to prosecute a war, tragically. Yes that is the case, just as the RUC officers had a duty to do their job. That’s the tragedy of the conflict but we’re not going to tolerate a narrative that says we have goodies on one side and baddies on another.”

Vincent Browne: “I think people will think this is utterly chilling.”

When Fine Gael TD Charlie Flanagan was asked what he thought on the back of Mac Lochlainn’s comments, he said:

“I found the remarks of Gerry Adams to be quite contemptible this morning in the aftermath of the report and I would have expected that Pádraig, as a member of Dáil Eireann, elected by the people, would have taken the opportunity tonight to distance himself from the comments by Gerry Adams”

After a series of interruptions from PádraigMac Lochlainn claiming “rank hypocrisy”, Charlie Flanagan TD said:

“It is indicative to the fact that nothing has changed as far as Sinn Féin is concerned. Gerry Adams, in the aftermath of a publication of a report, that showed for the first time, evidence of collusion in a brutal cold blooded outrageous murder of two officers of the state, in the course of their duty, and Gerry Adams in some way tried to make a case that these people were in some way responsible themselves for their downfall, I think quite frankly is outrageous, and I think your comments (Padraig Mac Lochlainn) this evening are equally outrageous as far as the matter is concerned.”.

The debate heated up as Mac Lochlainn continued to defend the actions of 1989 and likened the actions to those of Ghandi, Martin Luther King and Michael Collins.

Sarah McInerney, Political Correspondent for The Sunday Times admitted she was shocked and outraged by Mac Lochlainn’s comments and said Sinn Féin will have lost support on the back of them:

“I think they will have been done huge damage both by what Gerry Adams has said today and by what Pádraig is saying tonight. I came on tonight prepared to say that I thought Gerry Adams was doing Sinn Féin an awful lot of damage by his comments this morning and this afternoon. Like Charlie, I expected Pádraig to try and find some way to step back from those comments, to apologise for those comments, and to show some sympathy for the families of the two murdered RUC men today.

“Gerry Adams comments this morning in terms of saying that these officers had a Laissez-faire attitude to their own safety, it’s a kin to saying a woman who wears a short skirt deserves to be raped, because she’s asking for it. It’s outrageous, outrageous. It’s unbelievable.

“As long as Gerry Adams is leader of the party, Sinn Féin will never be taken seriously, as a mainstream party in Irish politics, because, I think the vast majority of people, possibly Sinn Féin supporters included, would have been looking at what has been said by Gerry Adams today and would have been turned off, disgusted by what Gerry Adams said today.”

‘Tonight with Vincent Browne’ airs Mon – Thursday from 11pm on TV3. #Vinb

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