Freddie Scappaticci has a glittering career ahead (that is assuming he is indeed "Stakeknife", which, in the nature of these matters, may not be the case at all and which his lawyer denies). A lucrative book contract, serialisation in the Sunday Times, congratulation for his bravery, writes Vincent Browne.
Perhaps a plush hideaway in literary London and the gushing welcomes from past masters of deception and manipulation. Maybe a discreet lunch near the House of Commons with a distinguished Tory or Unionist MP friend of his new caretakers.
And if he ever chooses to visit southern Ireland again, aside from a perfunctory detention at a Garda station where he will be asked politely about what he knows of the murder of Tom Oliver, tea and biscuits and then a discreet release, more celebration and adulation. A Late Late Show appearance for which he will be advised to engage in a choked apology for the pain he inflicted, then an anguished silence and waves of applause and more congratulation for his heroism.
The book will have to deal with the murky side of his career but so long as he infers that everything he did had the approval of Gerry Adams it won't interfere with the work's literary excellence (it will be essential that he smears Gerry Adams personally for that is what the agenda requires). And then maybe a TV series and, who knows, a film . . .
The vileness of his life, the appalling murders, not in a cause but in the course of a well-paid career as an informer. The tortures, the terrors, the brutalities he inflicted. All will be brushed over and, in a few years, quite forgotten. The Daily Telegraph and even the Guardian, will require his observations on some new revelation on republicans - fast racy copy with salacious further revelations of meetings attended by whoever is recently in the news and had complicity in some atrocity which is by then long dissociated from Freddie himself.
Bertie Ahern says he is to raise the "disturbing" issue of Freddie Scappaticci with Tony Blair in a few days. He is concerned, he says, with the rule of law. Some bloody nerve.
We have had an earlier manifestation of the Freddie Scappaticci syndrome here. It concerned one Sean O'Callaghan, who, according to himself arranged to murder an IRA "informer", John Corcoran of Cork, on March 22nd, 1985. Mr O'Callaghan was himself a Garda informer at the time. He says that in the days prior to the murder he informed his Garda handlers of the plans to murder John Corcoran. He says he told the gardaí where John Corcoran was being held and he says he expected the gardaí to intervene to save John Corcoran's life. But they did nothing and allowed the murder to proceed, lest the identity of their main informer [O'Callaghan\] be compromised.
When these matters came to public prominence in 1996, John O'Donoghue, then opposition spokesman on Justice, said Fianna Fáil, when returned to office, would have this matter fully investigated. When Fianna Fáil were returned to office the following year and John O'Donoghue himself was appointed Minister for Justice, there was no investigation of any sort for a while, then an internal Garda investigation (we know all about them now), and then nothing at all.
When this acknowledged murderer, Sean O'Callaghan, came back here on a lap of honour, a few years ago, he was taken into custody for a few hours of tea and biscuits before being released to the warm embrace of his gushing media admirers. There was the book, the serialisation, talk of film rights, television appearances, and, oh, the plush pad in London.
The Garda had known of Sean O'Callaghan's involvement in the murder of John Corcoran from the late 1980s, after O'Callaghan had gone into a British police station and acknowledged it, but they made no effort even to interview O'Callaghan about the murder until forced into it by media pressure a few years ago, and even then the investigation was perfunctory.
The life of John Corcoran and the devastation his murder caused his wife and large family in Cork at the time was of no consequence. And now Bertie Ahern talks of the rule of law! Wouldn't it be nice if we had a Government that was genuinely outraged that a paid agent of British intelligence murdered a citizen of this State, Tom Oliver, in appalling circumstances and one that had the moral integrity to call the British government to account on the issue?
The reality, sadly, is that our Government is in no position to do that for this State also engaged in the sacrifice of the life of one of its own citizens to protect the identity of an informer. And then the State went to all the usual lengths to cover it up , including the internal Garda "investigation".
Far more than mere complicity attaches to the leaders of "the republican movement". They were part of the campaign of horror, torture and murder. They didn't just allow it happen, they made it happen, and they should now, at least, spare us moral indignation on their part over how the British and Irish governments were compromised.
vbrowne@irish-times.ie