A secret document discussing a possible merger of the political and military wings of the republican movement in the early 1970s was handed to a former member of Official Sinn Fein by Mr Tony Heffernan, the High Court was told yesterday.
Mr Bill O'Brien, who was a member of the Wolfe Tone cumann in Ballymun along with Mr Proinsias De Rossa, said the document was circulated after the May 1972 ceasefire. Mr Heffernan, the assistant Government press secretary in the last Rainbow coalition, was an officer in the local comhairle ceanntair at the time, Mr O'Brien said. Mr Heffernan was now the DL press officer.
After the Aldershot bombing there was a debate in the organisation and a ceasefire emerged, Mr O'Brien told the court.
Mr O'Brien said he was a member of Official Sinn Fein but had never been a member of the Official IRA.
He was giving evidence on the eighth day of Mr De Rossa's libel action against the Sunday Independent over an article by Eamon Dunphy published on December 13th, 1992.
Mr O'Brien (48), who said his family was from a "staunchly republican" background, joined Clann na hEireann, the exiles' branch of the republican movement, around 1970 when he worked in England as a bricklayer. There were five component parts in the republican movement; three in Ireland, one in Britain, and one in the US.
They included the Official IRA, the military wing, Official Sinn Fein, the political wing, and na Fianna, the scout movement in Ireland, Clann na hEireann in Britain and Clann na nGael in the US.
He joined the Ballymun branch of Official Sinn Fein after his return to Ireland in 1971. He was a delegate to the Comhairle Ceanntair and from time to time had to attend education lectures.
He also organised the "library" within the cumann - a box of books including The Life and Times of James Connolly and The Life and Times of Wolfe Tone. Sometimes they discussed the books at cumann meetings.
At the 1972 ardfheis a resolution was passed to set up a committee to review the structure of the entire movement. A report was completed and circulated to all members of the party.
A warning attached to the document said the contents were confidential and "on no account should they be shown to or discussed with those outside of the movement." Asked who had given him the document for circulation, Mr O'Brien replied that it was Mr Tony Heffernan, who was PRO and chairman of the Comhairle Ceanntair around that time.
The document considered whether the structure should remain or whether a single revolutionary type party structure should be formed.
At the time there was a dual structure. The IRA was separate from the political structure which was Sinn Fein. It was not illegal to be in Sinn Fein but it was illegal to be in the IRA. The alternative proposal was to fuse both into a single organisation.
Every paid-up member was to get one of the documents and it was to be discussed at cumann level and at comhairle ceanntair level and members of the structural committee would meet with each branch to discuss it.
The debate took place from September that year to the middle of the next year. It was a divisive issue and before the ardfheis of 1974 "the organisation was in a state of schism". There was a split and the IRSP was formed.
Some people, including himself, simply left the organisation. He went to work in the Isle of Man. After returning to Ireland he joined the Communist Party of Ireland (CPI) and was a member for about 18 months.
Asked whether he had ever seen a copy of a pamphlet In the 1970s: The IRA speaks, Mr O'Brien said he could not say but it looked familiar.
He told Mr Paul O'Higgins SC, for Mr De Rossa, that he could not agree the CPI supported the campaign of the Provisional IRA. He said the party looked for a 32county Ireland but did not believe in the military campaign of the Provisionals.
Mr O'Higgins put it to him that the Workers Party tried to convince the Communist Party of the Soviet Union not to support the Provisional campaign because the CPI would not make that case. Mr O'Brien said he had no knowledge of that.
Mr O'Brien said he was never involved in violent republicanism. He took part in the H Block marches in 1981 but was not on any of the H Block/Armagh committees.
He was employed by a company which had a contract with the ESB at the Pigeon House at the time of the H Block marches. He was foreman on the site.
Mr O'Brien denied that as foreman he told those working for him to take a day off in unpaid leave to go on a H Block march and that four people had declined. He said that was "absolute nonsense".
Mr O Higgins: "And those four people were ultimately sacked at your behest."
Mr O'Brien: "Most definitely not."
He said he had never sold An Phoblacht but had sold the United Irishman with Mr De Rossa. Mr O'Higgins said Mr Hef fernan had not been chairman of the Comhairle Ceanntair in 1970/71 and was never PRO.
Mr O Brien denied that he had given evidence in order to damage Mr De Rossa and the Workers' Party because he was bitterly opposed to the stand they took on Northern Ireland.
Mr O'Brien said the evidence he had given was truthful, factual and historically correct.