How much does Bertie know?

On Sunday, January 9th, Bertie Ahern, commenting on the £26 million Northern Bank robbery in Belfast, said on the This Week RTÉ radio programme: "This was a Provisional IRA job. This was a job that would have been known to the leadership, this is a job that would have been known to the political leadership. That is my understanding."

Asked further: "And known to the political leadership of Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness and Gerry Kelly and all the others with whom you negotiated?" he replied: "Certainly in the leadership."

These comments were seen by Mark Durkan, leader of the SDLP, and by Southern politicians as corroboration of the statement of opinion by Hugh Orde, Chief Constable of the PSNI, that the bank robbery was indeed the work of the IRA. The comments and particularly the remark, "this is my information", certainly added further weight to the belief that it was an IRA operation but more than that. They also directly implicated Gerry Adams, Martin McGuinness and Gerry Kelly in the crime, implying at the very least that they were accessories before the fact and that they acted throughout the negotiations with the two governments and indirectly with the DUP with egregious bad faith.

If this was/is true, how, possibly, could negotiations with these people in the future get anywhere, for those dealing with them would have no way of knowing whether they were engaged in massive criminality and perhaps more behind everyone's back? There is no way Bertie Ahern could have any independent knowledge of responsibility for the Northern Bank robbery other than from our own police and security forces or perhaps from a briefing from Tony Blair.

If it was the latter, then isn't it surprising that Tony Blair himself has not said what Bertie Ahern has said or that the Northern Ireland Secretary, Paul Murphy, has not said that? And if Bertie Ahern received the information from the gardaí and/or otherwise from our security services isn't it likely that the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Michael McDowell, would know of this too? And if Michael McDowell did have such knowledge isn't it likely he would have made reference to it? On Thursday night last Michael McDowell delivered a characteristic tirade against the IRA and Sinn Féin. He repeated some of this on Questions and Answers on Monday night. On neither occasion did he make any reference to any information that might corroborate the claim by Hugh Orde, even though it would have suited his argument to have done so.

Not just that, he made it clear that the only basis for his belief that the robbery was the IRA's doing was the statement of Hugh Orde, on whose judgment he places considerable reliance.

So back to Bertie. Was his statement on radio on Sunday January 9th just another example of Bertie-speak, where he garbles information he has gleaned from somewhere and makes a hash of communicating it? Usually Bertie-speak is amusing and one doesn't really know whether the garble is deliberate or not. But in this instance it is not amusing at all and for two reasons.

The first reason is that if he exaggerated the information he had on responsibility for the robbery, he has lent false credence to a very serious charge. The second reason is more grave. If he simply made up the charge that the Sinn Féin leadership knew in advance of the robbery and dealt with him and the other parties to the talks in bad faith, he has done very considerable heedless damage to the process of attempting to conclude a settlement to the Northern Ireland problem.

It might indeed have been the IRA who did the Northern Bank robbery and it might be the case that Gerry Adams and Co knew of this in advance and dealt with the parties to the talks in bad faith. I don't know. But I strongly suspect that whoever was responsible for the robbery, Gerry Adams and Co did not know in advance and I say this for a few reasons.

One reason is that Gerry Adams and Co have condemned the robbery and they have in the past gone to the ends of the earth, semantically, to avoid condemning other and far more outrageous IRA actions. Another reason is that they have signalled that if the IRA did the robbery, then that would cause a major rift between Sinn Féin and the IRA. They have never even hinted at that before. A further reason is that Gerry Adams and Co would have known full well the political fallout from such a robbery and would have appreciated how it would have subverted the political project on which they have been engaged for many years.

Of course, I could be wrong about this and Bertie Ahern could have information that shows I am. But if he has not such information and if he made this accusation about the prior knowledge of Gerry Adams and Co off the top of his head, then he owes it to the process in which he too has invested so much to make that clear and to withdraw it.