Democratic Unionist MP Gregory Campbell has alleged that senior republicans were involved in a secret committee 13 years ago that dealt with almost 100 allegations of child abuse made against republicans.
The dramatic charges were made by the DUP MP under parliamentary privilege in the House of Commons yesterday, during questions to Northern Ireland Secretary of State Theresa Villiers.
However, the allegation was dismissed out of hand by Sinn Féin’s Deputy First Minister, Martin McGuinness.
Outside No 10 Downing Street yesterday, he said: “I wouldn’t even credit anything Gregory would say under parliamentary privilege with an answer.”
Asked about the allegation by Mr Campbell, Democratic Unionist Party First Minister Peter Robinson said he was “not aware of it”. He was speaking after a meeting between Mr McGuinness, Scotland’s first minister Alex Salmond, Wales’s first minister Carwyn Jones and British prime minister David Cameron.
"Fixed committee"
In the Commons, Mr Campbell said: "The voluntary sector had an unfair burden in the past, particularly in dealing with sex abuse victims.
“Will the Secretary of State comment on information I have received about a fixed committee that existed within the republican movement in 2000, which dealt with almost 100 sex abuse victims and in which some very prominent republicans were involved, and will she join me in calling for those people to come forward and help those many innocent victims deal with the nightmare they are still dealing with 13 years on?”
Ms Villiers said Mr Campbell had raised “some very grave matters and I would certainly encourage anyone who has been the victim of abuse to approach the police with that information, and anyone who has knowledge of such cases to do so, too.
“It is obviously crucial that this scourge to society is eliminated,” she added, “and that the voluntary sector, the police and the Government give all the support possible to victims of abuse.”
The allegation appears to have been made in the context of the continuing controversy about Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams knowing from 2000 that his brother Liam Adams had sexually abused his daughter Áine over a six-year period from when she was aged four, beginning in 1977.
Mr Adams said his brother made an admission of sexual abuse in Dundalk in 2000 but that he said it only happened on one occasion.
Recognise PSNI
In late 2006 and early 2007, The Irish Times understands, rank and file Sinn Féin members were told that child abuse was one reason why the party needed to recognise the Police Service of Northern Ireland.
Then, Sinn Féin cumann members, many of whom were extremely reluctant to accept the PSNI’s legitimacy, were told that the IRA could not deal with child-abuse allegations, particularly post-ceasefire.
A Sinn Féin spokesman, responding to the claim made in the House of Commons, said last evening: “Gregory Campbell’s claims about the existence of a ‘fixed committee’ dealing with cases of abuse in the year 2000 is untrue and without basis in fact.”
