At the end of 1970, in the aftermath of the arms trial, Northern politicians expressed concern about the misuse of funds.
Eamonn Gallagher, of the Department of External Affairs, met Gerry Fitt and the late Paddy Devlin in Belfast on December 13th, 1970. They were preoccupied with the Dail Public Accounts Committee investigation of the Northern Distress Relief Fund. (National Archives file 2001/8/15).
Mr Devlin was a trustee of the Clones bank account set up at the suggestion of Mr Haughey. Mr Gallagher reported that "according to both Fitt and Devlin, in separate discussions, the cleavage in regard to the use of the funds became evident immediately after Mr Blaney's speech in Letterkenny on November 6th, 1969." [This speech was in fact delivered on December 8th - see adjoining report.]
"Mr Fitt was asked to issue a statement supporting Mr Blaney but refused to do so. Mr Devlin was also asked to issue a statement supporting Mr Blaney and refused to do so. Thereafter he was squeezed out of the handling of the Clones bank account and knows no more about it."
Mr Gallagher's report continued: "Mr Fitt said that the misuse of the fund was both obvious and tragic in Belfast. Thugs and layabouts from the New Lodge Road area, personally known to him since his childhood, were clearly in receipt of Irish money and, in his opinion, were employed to stir up trouble at will . . . The line of command, so far as he could discover, was from Mr Blaney to [the late] Mr Paddy Kennedy MP at the political level and through the Kelly brothers at the strong-arm level."
Lord Fitt - then leader of the newly-founded SDLP - regarded Paddy Kennedy MP, a former protege, "as an immature personality". He said Mr Kennedy had considered approaching Dr Garret FitzGerald, a member of the Public Accounts Committee, in the hope of persuading him "to go easy"; Mr Fitt commented: "but, knowing Garret FitzGerald's reputation, he had no doubt that this would fail if indeed it is even attempted".
Devlin considered Kennedy had "sold himself completely to Mr Blaney and allowed himself to be used for the purpose of diverting the relief funds to the purchase of violence and the instruments of violence".
The Irish Consulate in Boston reported that 500 people received Kennedy with "wild enthusiasm" when he spoke on behalf of the Provisional IRA in September 1971, after the introduction of internment in Northern Ireland. He addressed the Massachusetts House and Senate next day as chairman of the "new Irish Provincial Government".
Lord Fitt declared that "social justice will destroy unionism". He felt "Mr Haughey was pushed gradually into an impossible position by Mr Blaney, in the expectation that the Taoiseach would not dare to touch Mr Blaney if he also had to take on Mr Haughey." Mr Gallagher filed a report marked "secret" after meeting John Hume and others in Derry.
He noted: "Mr Hume recently saw Cardinal Conway and in the course of an informal discussion with him suggested that the road to unity included removal of the divorce clause from the Irish Constitution. Cardinal Conway reacted sharply to this. Hume pointed out that removal of the divorce clause did not mean that legislation enabling divorce would be necessarily introduced for the 26 Counties. His point simply was that the Constitution as it stands cannot absorb the Six Counties, which has a divorce law. To this Cardinal Conway responded by saying that so far as he was concerned the matter must be kept in the hands of the people and not given to the legislature."
Mr Hume confided that on the way back from Belfast with Paddy Doherty, "King of the Bogside", he was quite startled when Mr Doherty dropped the remark that Mr Gibbons, minister for defence during the arms crisis, "was an innocent party and that others had planned together to throw some blame on him".
As the civil rights movement was eclipsed by violence, 28 people were killed in 1970: Garda Richard Fallon, 19 civilians, two RUC officers and six IRA members. The IRA was held responsible for 20 deaths and the British army for six.