Leave Jerry McCabe in peace

On June 10th, 1996, just after an IRA gang killed Garda Jerry McCabe and tried to kill his colleague Ben O'Sullivan, the Sinn Féin vice-president Pat Doherty appeared on RTÉ's Questions and Answers, writes Fintan O'Toole.

He refused to condemn the attack. Speaking to journalists during a visit to Brussels the next day, the then taoiseach John Bruton said he had been "deeply disturbed" by Pat Doherty's failure to condemn the IRA's actions. A fortnight later, John Bruton was himself criticised for attacking Doherty's silence.

A mealy-mouthed politician implied that Bruton's demand for condemnation was putting the peace process at risk: "In demanding that Sinn Féin condemns the recent actions of the IRA, is the Government effectively creating a split in the republican movement? Does the Taoiseach consider this is helpful to peace?

"Is the Taoiseach happy that the Government could be - perhaps we all are - in serious danger of losing any influence it might have with the republican movement by trying to force Mr Adams in particular into condemnation of those he is trying to convince to move forward?"

Who was this apologist for Sinn Féin's refusal to say that riddling gardaí with bullets is wrong? Was it Pat Doherty or Mitchel McLaughlin or Martin McGuinness? No, it was the present Taoiseach and then leader of the opposition, Bertie Ahern. He accused John Bruton of stirring up tensions within the so-called republican movement by demanding that Sinn Féin condemn the attack on Jerry McCabe and Ben O'Sullivan. "It is the easiest thing on earth," he warned, "to get up here and to lecture and speak against the republican movement. It is not easy for its members. They are risking their lives. I ask the Taoiseach to continue to try to assist them." If poor Toiréasa Ferris, the Sinn Féin mayor of Kerry, is feeling rather confused at the moment, it is hard to blame her.

In her now infamous Late Late Show appearance, she was asked to condemn the killing of Jerry McCabe and took, in essence, the Bertie Ahern line from June 1996: that people should not be asked to condemn gruesome acts of violence when it is politically inconvenient for them to do so. For this she faced yesterday a motion from Bertie Ahern's own party calling on Kerry County Council to condemn in the strongest possible terms the savage and brutal killing of Jerry McCabe and the injury inflicted on Ben O'Sullivan, and to condemn Sinn Féin's failure to denounce the crime.

The real issue in all of this is that for almost a decade now the killing of Jerry McCabe has been a political weapon, deployed with occasional sincerity, but with increasing degrees of cynicism and opportunism.

Sinn Féin's stance on the issue has been governed by expediency. First, Gerry Adams condemned the killing - "Crimes like this can play no part in the republican struggle and those who are seeking to blame Sinn Féin know this." Then, when it became clear that demanding the release of the killers was a useful way of nodding and winking at the IRA's rank-and-file, the line shifted and condemning the killing became a no-no. (It is telling that Toiréasa Ferris's explanation for her refusal to condemn the killing on the Late Late is that she didn't "have the authority to do that".

But the Government's stance has been no less opportunistic. In December 1999, Ann McCabe got a written assurance from then minister for justice John O'Donoghue that the killers would serve their full sentences. During the 2002 general election, Mary Harney swore that the Progressive Democrats would not be part of any government that released the men.

This line held until May 2004, with Willie O'Dea, for example, writing in the Sunday Independent that the very notion of releasing the killers as part of a deal on getting devolved government back in place in Northern Ireland was "stomach-churning". At the same time, however, the Government was agreeing in those talks that, as Bertie Ahern put it, "we were prepared, if we achieved the totality of what we were trying to negotiate, to examine and approve a situation where we would release the prisoners". What really is, to use Willie O'Dea's phrase, "stomach-churning", is that the brutal killing of a man who was doing his duty on behalf of the Irish public remains, even now, an opportunity for political advantage.

Fine Gael can't stand the notion of a Shinner who won't condemn the killing of Jerry McCabe holding office on Kerry County Council. Its last leader Michael Noonan was on record as stating that Sinn Féin couldn't be in government in the Republic "while they are ambivalent about decommissioning", implying that they could be acceptable in a coalition after decommissioning had taken place, whatever they had to say about Jerry McCabe. Fianna Fáil supported Sinn Féin's refusal to condemn the killing in 1996 and now pretends to be deeply offended by it.

The whole thing has become such a disgusting sham that it has to be taken off the political agenda. Let the killers rot in jail. Let the media stop using the issue to generate mock outrage. Let Jerry McCabe rest in peace.