No 'access to papers' if UK has something to hide

The British authorities have already released a lot of sensitive material under the 30-year rule, and we have to draw certain conclusions if they refuse to provide documents sought by the inquiry into bombings in the Republic in 1972/73, the former secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs, Mr Seán Donlon, told an Oireachtas committee yesterday.

The inquiry into the bombings by Mr Justice Barron was told by the British authorities this time last year that they had not been able to begin "a further major and time-consuming search" for documents .

However, giving evidence to the Oireachtas sub-committee into the second Barron Report, the former departmental secretary said that this was not credible because the British authorities would already have sifted through their records from the early 1970s for release to the public archives under the 30-year rule.

He said that while a lot of security-related material would have been left behind, official British papers for the early 1970s had already been released, and were available on the internet.

Mr Donlon recommended that the Oireachtas committee narrow its search for British documents, and look specifically for material which he identified as the "Laneside papers" and others generated by the Joint Intelligence Committee in Whitehall in London.

He warned, however, that "if the British decide they have something to hide, we are not going to get access to the papers".

Mr Donlon said that Laneside House in the early 1970s had been the base of "a senior British official of uncertain background". This official was a point of contact for paramilitary groups.

He said that on one occasion in 1972, when he arrived at the front door of the residence, he saw members of the Provisional IRA leaving by another exit.

Mr Donlon said that the Laneside papers, if available, could reveal "patterns of correspondence" between the British and the UDA and UVF.

He said the Joint Intelligence Committee, which was chaired in Downing Street by the cabinet secretary or one of his immediate deputies, dealt with all British security operations worldwide.

However, he cautioned that it was unlikely that this material would be forthcoming.

Former taoiseach Dr Garret FitzGerald told the committee that there was no evidence of British involvement in the bombings, but this could not be excluded.

Dr FitzGerald and former minister for justice Mr Des O'Malley indicated that it would be unrealistic for the Government to believe that there were not intelligence agents from other countries operating in Ireland.