Madam, - I am acutely reluctant to re-ignite old controversies - especially in the context of an obituary of a distinguished person who is sadly recently deceased - but I simply must protest at certain statements concerning the 1970 Arms Trial contained in the recent obituary of the late former Attorney General Colm Condon SC (The Irish Times, August 23rd).
These statements seem to be identical to those contained in a short article concerning the late Mr Condon immediately after his death (The Irish Times, August 11th).
The obituary contains the following passages:
"In 2001 a new controversy emerged on the events of the arms trial when RTÉ's Prime Time revealed that a statement in 1970 by Col Michael Hefferon, the head of military intelligence, was changed to protect Jim Gibbons, the Minister for Defence and to buttress the State case against Mr Haughey and Neil Blaney.
"The documentary disclosed that the original statement made by Col Hefferon was withheld from Mr Condon who, as Attorney General, was preparing the case."
The April 2001 Prime Time programme did indeed demonstrate that the statement of Col Hefferon had been changed. The programme further suggested that the changes had been made to suit the prosecution by, inter alia, deleting certain references to Mr Gibbons.
It furthermore heavily hinted that the changes to that statement corresponded closely with marks and underlinings on a copy of that original statement which had been made by the then Secretary of the Department of Justice, Peter Berry.
The implication here was that the changes to the statement had been sanctioned by me (as then Minister for Justice) at a political level and that the evidence was "doctored" accordingly.
Your newspaper was kind enough to publish in full my very detailed response to these allegations (The Irish Times, May 10th, 2001). In that statement I pointed out that there was, in fact, no real correspondence between the Berry marks and underlinings and the editing changes to the Hefferon statement.
I further pointed out - which Prime Time had not - that virtually all the prosecution statements had been changed and edited. In many instances, material deeply damaging to the defence contained in the original statements was also excluded. Many examples of this could be given, but one must suffice for present purposes.
Mr Michael Donnelly was a senior official in the Department of Justice who was alerted following a phone conversation with Mr Niall O'Brien, Assistant Secretary of the Department of Transport and Power, on April 17th, 1970 that a consignment of arms and ammunition was due in from Vienna.
In his original statement Mr Donnelly recounted what Mr O'Brien had described "as a rather strange approach which had been made to the Cargo Division of Aer Lingus. A man representing himself as Commandant Kelly of Army Secret Service had approached the Cargo Division to know if they could bring in a consignment of arms and ammunition from Vienna. The consignment would be a large one weighing six tons and would consists of Luger pistols and ammunition 'which were required to arm the Garda Síochána who were engaged in guarding the banks'."
This passage was omitted in its entirety from the final version of the Donnelly statement contained in the official book of evidence. This is scarcely surprising, as the excluded passage is pure hearsay. Yet if there had been a political direction to doctor the evidence against the accused, one would have expected that this passage - and much else besides in the original statements of the other prosecution witnesses which was subsequently excluded - would have been included in the book of evidence.
Virtually all the changes to the original statements made by prosecution witnesses to the gardaí (including the changes to Col Hefferon's original statement) can be explained by reference to the rules of evidence: hearsay, the exclusion of opinion evidence and such like.
The second part of the Prime Time thesis - that the original statement of Col Hefferon was withheld from Attorney General Condon who had responsibility for the prosecution - has also been shown to be equally without substance.
Material released from the Attorney General's office to the National Archives in December 2002 (National Archives reference number 2003/4/537) shows not only that the original version of the Col Hefferon statement had in fact been supplied to the Attorney General's Office, but also that the editing of those statements was carried out by or under the direction of the senior legal official in that office.
As Stephen Collins (now your newspaper's Political Editor) pointed out at the time (Sunday Tribune, January 3rd, 2003):
"The files from the Attorney General's office provide conclusive proof, if such were needed, that Jack Lynch, Des O'Malley and the Secretary of the Department of Justice, Peter Berry, did not conspire to pervert the course of justice in the arms trial as alleged by RTÉ's Prime Time programme two years ago."
The fact that your newspaper has now recently twice repeated the original Prime Time thesis and has done so in an unqualified manner in the teeth of the known facts regarding this aspect of the Arms Trial can only be regarded as unfortunate and deeply disappointing. - Yours, etc,
DESMOND O'MALLEY,
Merrion Road,
Dublin 4.