Sons of murdered prison officer Brian Stack meet Gerry Adams

Austin Stack asks Sinn Féin leader to use contacts to help ‘establish responsibility for what happened to our father’


The sons of murdered prison officer Brian Stack held a "productive and forthright" meeting with Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams in Leinster House yesterday evening.

Mr Stack, who was the chief prison officer in Portlaoise, was shot in the back of the neck on March 25th, 1983, after leaving an amateur boxing contest at the National Stadium in Dublin. The father of three was left paralysed and brain-damaged. He lived for 18 months after the attack. His sons Austin and Oliver Stack sought a meeting with Mr Adams after he had apologised in the Dáil in January to the families of State forces who were killed by Republicans.

Speaking after the meeting, Austin Stack said they had agreed to meet again within the month. “We put to Deputy Adams a few of the questions we had and asked him to use his contacts to help us establish responsibility for what happened to our father.”

Mr Stack told RTÉ's Prime Time he was seeking "actual acceptance of responsibility from Sinn Féin and the IRA".

Mary Minihan

Mary Minihan

Mary Minihan is Features Editor of The Irish Times