The Minister for Justice, Mr McDowell, has put it up to members of Sinn Féin and the IRA to co-operate fully with a sworn public inquiry into the murder of two RUC officers, Chief Supt Harry Breen and Supt Robert Buchanan, near the Border in 1989.
Their response, he said, would contribute substantially to the success or failure of the inquiry that is due to be held next year. And he drew a parallel between the demands of "so-called republicans" concerning allegations of collusion by Northern Ireland security forces with loyalist paramilitaries and their reaction to investigations concerning the activities of the IRA.
Publishing two reports by retired Canadian Supreme Court judge, Mr Peter Cory, into allegations of collusion between Irish security forces and the IRA, yesterday, Mr McDowell emphasised that Judge Cory had not found collusion had taken place, but that sufficient evidence existed, in one instance, to warrant an inquiry. The murders of the two RUC officers in 1989 and of Northern Ireland Lord Justice Maurice Gibson and Lady Cecily Gibson, in 1987, were investigated. In the latter case, no evidence of collusion was found. But in the case of the two RUC officers, Judge Cory reported that evidence, including intelligence reports, would - if accepted - constitute collusion by employees of this State.
The public was rightly shocked by last week's report from Mr Justice Barron on the 1974 Dublin and Monaghan bombings, which pointed to collusion between individual members of the Northern Ireland security forces and loyalist paramilitaries. Allegations concerning collusion by members of the Garda Síochána in the murderous activities of the IRA are no less worrying.
Judge Cory was unable to subpoena witnesses or to compel the production of documents in his limited inquiry. The investigation now proposed by the Government will remedy that situation.
Judge Cory was asked by the two governments in 2001 to inquire into six cases of possible collusion, four of them in the North. The latter cases involved the murders of Mr Pat Finucane, Mr Robert Hamill, Ms Rosemary Nelson and Mr Billy Wright. Reports were supplied to the relevant governments, last October. They had undertaken to hold public inquiries if the judge felt they were warranted.
It would be a cause for serious concern if the British government now failed to deal with those elements of the Cory report involving its security forces. A failure to co-operate with Mr Justice Barron's inquiry has already affected public perceptions in this State. Legal debate is said to be under way in London concerning the implications of the Cory report for the rights of individuals under the European Convention of Human Rights. That may be ominous. If the Cory report is to contribute to peace and reconciliation in Northern Ireland, all the parties concerned must co-operate fully with investigations into collusion by the security forces.