Margaret Thatcher doubted Irish resolve to combat terrorism
Files from 1988 show prime minister was angry at Garda and Haughey response to IRA
Newly elected UK prime minister Margaret Thatcher on a visit to Girdwood barracks in Belfast, 1979
Former UK prime minister Margaret Thatcher complained at the height of the Troubles that the IRA saw the Republic as a safe haven and that the Garda was slow to share information to counter terrorism, according to new files released in Britain.
Mrs Thatcher had become angered in 1988 by what she saw as a failure by taoiseach Charlie Haughey to criticise IRA terrorism and told him in a face-to-face meeting in Hanover, Germany, that the island of Ireland had the largest concentration of terrorists anywhere in the world, apart from Lebanon, yet there was better intelligence provided to the British from all other European countries.