The Irish Government should apologise for the failure of past administrations to prevent IRA killers escaping south across the Border during the Troubles, unionists have said.
Representatives of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) met Taoiseach Enda Kenny during a meeting of the North-South Ministrial Council in Armagh.
The talks came after Mr Kenny last night promised to lobby internationally against the British government’s failure to deliver the promised inquiry into the security force role in the murder of Belfast solicitor Pat Finucane.
But the DUP’s Arlene Foster and the UUP’s Danny Kennedy presented the Taoiseach with details of more than 150 republican murders, and said the timing of their discussions today was coincidence.
Ms Foster said: “But I do think, given the comments that were made last night it is very timely that this meeting should take place.
“And that they should remind the Irish Government of today that we certainly feel that the Irish government of the ‘70s and indeed of the late ‘60s, could have done a lot more to stop the campaign of genocide that was happening in Fermanagh, Tyrone, South Armagh and indeed Derry as well."
“A lot of those murders took place in the dead of night, and then people were able with impunity, to go back to the Republic of Ireland and therefore escape prosecution.” She said the rate for convictions for killings of this kind in the Border county of Fermanagh was as low as 3 per cent.
“There has been plenty of calls for our own government to recognise what happened in Northern Ireland over the years,” Mrs Foster added.
“And we think it is long past the time that the Irish Government did the same.” The unionist representatives cited cases where the IRA had killed security force members or Protestant civilians in the Border areas of Northern Ireland, only to escape south within minutes.
The British and Irish Governments agreed to hold inquiries into a number of killings where their security personnel had been implicated.
But while the other inquiries have gone ahead, including one in Dublin, British prime minister David Cameron angered the Finucane family by ordering only a review of the files in the loyalist killing of their loved one.
DUP leader Peter Robinson was also at today’s Armagh meeting.
Asked if Mr Kenny had gone too far in pledging to lobby for the Finucane family, Mr Robinson said he accepted the Finucanes and many other families had suffered the loss of a loved one. But he added: “There is a feeling that there is some hierarchy of victims.
Mr Kenny said he shared the First Minister’s concern for all victims.
"My feelings are in respect of all victims and all families who have lost loved ones - fathers, children, husbands, wives. This case (Pat Finucane) arose out of an agreement (to hold an inquiry)."
“So these are always sensitive, and anybody who has lost a loved one, for whatever reason, always looks for the opportunity, and rightly so, to have the truth known.”
Meanwhile, Government officials from Dublin and Belfast have been tasked to draw up new plans for the major cross-Border A5 road.
The decision to consider a new “funding and implementation plan” was made by both administrations at the North-South Ministerial Council meeting.
This comes after the Irish Government said it was unable to provide the £400 million (€466 million) it had pledged to the dual carriageway.
Taoiseach Enda Kenny, First Minister Peter Robinson and Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness all reaffirmed their commitment to the road that will run from Derry to Augnacloy, linking Donegal to Dublin.
But its future direction will now depend on the fresh round of discussions between officials from north and south.
The Taoiseach said the decision to support the A5 was a formal decision of Government and he reaffirmed that commitment.
He added: “That has sent out the message that the commitment that we have made is against the background of very changed economic circumstances.
PA