Bloody Sunday Inquiry Day 423Former leader of the SDLP Mr John Hume yesterday dismissed as "crazy" a claim that he and three other members of the SDLP were "intelligence officers" for the Irish Government in Northern Ireland in 1971 and 1972.
The allegation was contained in a document compiled by the then RUC Special Branch after the Bloody Sunday killings.
It claimed Mr Hume, Mr Austin Currie, Mr Paddy O'Hanlon and Mr Ivan Cooper gave intelligence reports to the late Taoiseach, Jack Lynch.
The document was yesterday placed before Mr Samuel Donnelly, who on Bloody Sunday was a chief inspector with the RUC's Special Branch in Derry. He said he no longer recalled the methods used in intelligence gathering in the early 1970s.
The 10-page document, headed "Secret Special Branch Assessment For The Period Ended 3rd February 1972", stated there had been "reliable intelligence" that the IRA planned to use the civil rights march as cover for gun attacks on the security forces.
The document stated: "At the start of the period there appeared to be a hardening of attitude by the Eire Government authorities towards the IRA members operating from Eire in Border areas, but this has now been offset by official Eire Government expressions of sympathy for the victims of the Londonderry shooting (Bloody Sunday) coupled with the denunciation of British army tactics on that occasion and promises of support to all those working for the overthrow of the Stormont Government."
It added: "In this connection, the intention of Mr Lynch to make public funds available to any such groups is an overt expression in line with overt payments already made to SDLP and through them to the Catholic Ex-Servicemens' Association.
"It is also worth recalling previous intelligence to the effect that Mr Lynch's Intelligence Officers in Northern Ireland are Messrs Cooper, Currie, O'Hanlon and Hume, the latter having not publicly stated that only a United Ireland - now - will satisfy the minority", the intelligence report added.
Reacting to the contents of the intelligence document, Mr Hume, who last week announced his intention to step down as an MEP, said he found the section relating to him and to his former party colleagues as preposterous.
"It is absolutely crazy and a total nonsense but what it does show is the then RUC Special Branch's attitude to, and the lack of knowledge of, the nationalist community."
The simple truth is that we in the SDLP were building up regular contacts with the Irish Government, the Taoiseach and with all the parties in the Dáil.
"Jack Lynch was the first Taoiseach to become directly involved in Northern Ireland as we were attempting to construct an agreed approach in Dublin to Northern Ireland. We succeeded in doing that following a series of meetings and phone calls. For the RUC Special Branch to describe those meetings and phone calls as constituting intelligence gathering just shows how bad their intelligence was at that time," said Mr Hume.
Meanwhile, another now retired RUC Special Branch officer told the 423rd day of the inquiry, which is due to end this week, that he had never received any information that those killed on Bloody Sunday were IRA members.
Former Det Sgt Samuel Davidson also told the hearing that he had not received any intelligence information which claimed that Sinn Féin MP, Mr Martin McGuinness, who was second in command of the Provisional IRA in Derry on Bloody Sunday, was armed with a Thompson sub-machine gun during the civil rights march.