There is no doubt that the unsolved murder of prison officer Brian Stack in 1983 by the IRA remains a matter of public concern. And that those who might have knowledge of the events around his brutal killing and its perpetrators have a moral and legal obligation to provide the Garda with as much information as they have.
And there is nothing wrong with raising such issues publicly, repeatedly, sharply, if necessary, no matter how inconvenient and embarrassing that might prove to some people. Indeed, we owe it to Brian Stack’s memory and to his family not to let the matter rest, not to sweep it under the carpet.
The suggestion that raising questions about what people do or do not know is “scurrilous political point scoring” is laughable. Politics is often about seeking political advantage from questions raised in the public interest. Nor is it inherently reprehensible for that. If Sinn Féin has problems, or suffers politically, it is because it does not have convincing answers. Not because the questions should not be asked.
Following allegations made by Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin during the election campaign, Sinn Féin's leader Gerry Adams felt himself suddenly compelled in February of this year to inform the Garda Commissioner of all that he knew about the case, or all he purported to know. In the course of which the names of two TDs and two others with possible knowledge of the killing were communicated to her, information Adams says he received from Brian Stack's son, Austin Stack, three years previously in 2013. Stack had, according to Adams, received the names from unidentified Garda and/or journalistic sources.
Stack directly contradicts Adams’s account. He is adamant – “absolutely categoric”– he never mentioned any names to Adams in the course of “five or six” meetings between the two men.
There are two alternative plausible explanations. The one, that Stack’s memory has failed him. The other, that Adams invented the exchange. Yet, why would he do that? Perhaps because otherwise he might have to explain where and how he got that limited information, and what else he knows about the case. Those questions still need to be answered along with the identities of the IRA leader who met Stack with Adams, and the driver who facilitated the meeting.
Adams has brought this latest crisis of credibility upon himself. It stems like the others that have dogged his career since Sinn Féin embraced parliamentary politics – from his one-time IRA membership, and from his prevarication over the Northern Bank raid, over what he knew about the killings of Jean McConville and Robert McCartney, to mention but two, and over the rape of Maíría Cahill. It arises from his personal decision, unlike party colleagues, not to fudge but to explicitly deny crucial parts of his history. They have caught up with him, as they inevitably would.