UNDER cross examination by Mr Patrick MacEntee, SC, Mr De Rossa was questioned about the Workers' Party's relationship with a company that did business with the Soviet Union.
He was asked about who shot Mr Seamus Costello, the leader of the breakaway IRSP. He also gave details about his involvement with the IRA.
Mr De Rossa said that Na Fianna, which he joined at age 12, was a republican organisation founded by Padraic Pearse. He joined Sinn Fein when he was 16 or 17.
He had participated in a guard of honour at the funeral cortege in 1957 of Sean South, an IRA man who was killed. He agreed, with the benefit of hindsight, that Na Fianna was a recruiting ground for the IRA. He joined the IRA aged 16.
His IRA training was primarily route marching. He got sight of a rifle which they were trained to dismantle and re assemble. That would have been when he was 16 or 17 years old.
Mr De Rossa said he resigned from the IRA in 1960, when he was 20, two years before the IRA declared a ceasefire. He was in the IRA until he was about 20. He had no way of knowing if those who were interned with him in 1957-59 were IRA members. He knew from conversations that some of them were not.
He served a second prison sentence of three months. After that he was requested to report for active service, but refused and resigned from the IRA. He had never been on active service. Hundreds left the IRA over that period.
Mr De Rossa said he chose to stay with Sinn Fein as be believed changes were being made.
He was still a republican and believed that there should be a united Ireland but that it was wrong to seek to do that by force. Nobody in Sinn Fein at that stage advocated violence.
Asked if people had been advocating a return to violence, Mr De Rossa said those who held that view had ceased to be active in Sinn Fein. It was only when the crisis arose in 1969 in the North that they flooded back and argued for a recommencement of the armed struggle against the British.
Mr De Rossa said it was essential to make clear that he had at no time associated with any criminal activity or anybody who was engaged in violence for a political purpose.
Mr MacEntee asked if it would be right to say it was the Official IRA who bombed Aldershot. Mr De Rossa said the organisation claimed it did.
Asked if that was the military wing of Official Sinn Fein, Mr De Rossa said he (counsel) could say that if he wished but as far as he (Mr De Rossa) was concerned, Official Sinn Fein was an independent socialist party doing its best to prevent violence in Northern Ireland.
Asked if before 1982, there had been any other significant change in the Workers' Party and if it had become a Marxist party, he said no.
Mr MacEntee questioned him in detail about whether there had been a fraternal relationship between the Workers' Party and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. After Mr Justice McCracken intervened to asks counsel to define "fraternal" Mr MacEntee described it as a "special close form of friendship - between Communist parties".
Mr De Rossa agreed that there was a fraternal relationship but added that the implication of the question was that the Workers' Party was Communist. "It was not," he said.
Pressed about how fraternal the parties were, Mr De Rossa said "I am not all that interested in all that kind of mumbo jumbo, to be honest".
He said the party in the formal sense was not interested in international affairs, but Sean O Cionnaith, and the general secretary, and the education officer, Des O'Hagan, sought to pursue that relationship.
Mr MacEntee put it to Mr De Rossa that he was a frequent visitor to the Russian embassy. The witness said he visited it on national days just as he visited other embassies on their national days.
Mr MacEntee: "Did you have economic ties with Russia?"
Mr De Rossa: "What do you mean by economic ties?"
Mr MacEntee: "Did you have business ties?"
Mr De Rossa: "The Workers' Party did not have business ties with Russia".
Counsel asked whether he was aware of any companies doing business with Russia. Witness replied that if Mr MacEntee named the company perhaps he could answer.
Mr MacEntee asked witness what he knew about a company called Repsol. He said he understood the directors were Sean Garland, Tomas MacGiolla, Cathal Goulding and Seam us Lynch, "but he may have resigned".
Repsol was an acronym for Republican Socialist Publications. Mr De Rossa said he understood the company bought English language books and sold them in shops around the country and also in the Workers' Party shop.
The company's address was 30 Gardiner Place, the Workers' Party's headquarters. Mr De Rossa said he had no idea whether the company did other business with the USSR and he had never heard anything about an oil deal.
Repsol was an independent company not under the control of the Workers' Party.
Mr MacEntee: "It just had the same directors and the same premises as the Workers' Party". Mr De Rossa: "Yes."
Asked about the business relationship between Repsol and the Workers' Party, Mr De Rossa said the company printed some pamphlets and election leaflets for them.
Mr De Rossa said he recalled Repsol buying a large printing press in the 1980s which cost about £200,000 and was at the back of party headquarters.
Questioned about the membership of the party's political committee, Mr De Rossa said it included party general secretary Mr Sean Garland as secretary as well as Mr Tomas MacGiolla, Mr Des O'Hagan, Mr Seamus Harrison from Belfast, and Ms Triona Dooney. He thought Seamus Lynch and Cathal Goulding also have been members.
Asked about the party's disciplinary procedures, Mr De Rossa said if it came to his attention that a party member had been convicted of a crime of a political nature, he would approach the general secretary, Sean Garland, and ask him if there was any basis for the allegation.
Most of the allegations were about unnamed people so it was difficult to pursue them.
Counsel pressed him on whether any member of the official IRA who was not a member of the Workers' Party could be ignored.
He said any person who was not in the Workers' Party, regardless of what organisation they were in, was not the party's concern.
Asked if there were members of the Workers' Party who were members of the Official IRA the plaintiff replied: "How could I know that?"
Counsel put it to him that after 10 years in close contact with somebody surely he could reach a pretty good conclusion as to whether they were in the IRA.
Mr De Rossa said as far as he was concerned there was no contact between the IRA and the Workers' Party.
He said some people within the Official IRA in the 1970s thought there should be a return to violence. Asked who these people were, he said he had no idea but Seam us Costello was believed to be one of them.
Mr MacEntee asked witness how Seamus Costello "met his end". Mr De Rossa said he was shot.
Mr MacEntee: "Who shot him? Mr De Rossa replied that what he knew about the shooting was from reports.
Mr MacEntee: "Who shot the man who shot him? Who shot the man who shot the man who shot him?"