THE GOVERNMENT, when Charles Haughey was taoiseach, provided information that led to the SAS killing three IRA members in Gibraltar 20 years ago, the Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams has alleged.
Mr Adams made his claim yesterday when announcing a series of events to mark the deaths of the three IRA members and other killings over that week in March 1988 when loyalist Michael Stone killed three people in Milltown Cemetery and when two British army corporals were killed by the IRA.
Three IRA members - Maireád Farrell, Seán Savage and Danny McCann - were shot dead by the SAS in controversial circumstances in Gibraltar in March 1988 where they were planning a car bomb attack on British soldiers.
"It is my strong view that the killings in Gibraltar were authorised by Margaret Thatcher, and it is my strong view that the Irish government of the day passed information to the authorities about the movements of those killed," said Mr Adams. "I cannot prove that but that is my conviction."
Families of those killed in Gibraltar and at Milltown Cemetery, as well as relatives of IRA member Kevin McCracken who was also killed that week, gathered at the former RUC/British army base in Andersonstown in west Belfast yesterday.
Mr Adams said he also wanted to remember the two British army corporals who were killed by the IRA during the funerals of one of the Milltown Cemetery victims.
"Because we genuinely do not believe of any hierarchy of victimhood we are mindful that those two men had families, and they also will be grieving and remembering what happened on that day. And the truth of that has yet to materialise," he said.
Mr Adams said that the commemoration to Maireád Farrell, organised by Sinn Féin MLA Jennifer McCann, should go ahead in the Parliament Buildings, Stormont, on March 7th as part of the events around International Women's Day on March 8th.
"Maireád was a brave, lovely and wonderful Irishwoman. There was no intention to offend anyone by this event and certainly no intention to see Maireád's good name embroiled in a row . . .," he said.
"It is a sense of grave insensitivity that a counter event to commemorate the work of the SAS has been mooted [by DUP MP Jeffrey Donaldson]. We all know the role of the SAS. I think we must all calm down around this," added Mr Adams.
"This isn't a matter of living only in the past. This is a matter of making sure the past does not repeat itself and I think that is the very, very least we owe to families of all of the people who died in that dreadful week 20 years ago in this district."
The Assembly commission, chaired by speaker William Hay, is currently deciding whether the Maireád Farrell commemoration should take place in the Long Gallery at Parliament Buildings.
Mr Adams also said yesterday that while the IRA had indicated it was "highly unlikely" it would meet the Eames-Bradley group on the past, Sinn Féin had "no problem" with the group, to which it had already made a submission.
