THE Irish government had a “mole” at a senior level in the republican movement 10 years ago, according to the former justice minister Michael McDowell. The insider was able to indicate what Sinn Fein would accept in the negotiations leading to the St Andrews agreement.
In an interview for a new book on Sinn Fein’s political rise, McDowell claims the Fianna Fail and Progressive Democrat government had a source who was privy to the thinking of the party leadership during the negotiations.
McDowell told Deaglán de Bréadún, author of Power Play, that the Irish government knew Sinn Fein would accept the agreement even though it meant recognition of the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI).
“I knew that we had somebody there, but I don’t know who it was or where that person was,” said McDowell. “I got absolutely reliable information and, when the whole peace process was going towards the St Andrews agreement, [Tony] Blair and [Jonathan] Powell, [Downing Street chief of staff] were always asking us to make concessions.
“I was getting a briefing that none of those was necessary, that the decision had been made, and just to ignore the Brits. My information turned out to be right.”
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Under the agreement, Sinn Fein agreed to work with the PSNI and sit on policing boards in Northern Ireland, while the DUP agreed to work with Gerry Adams’s party in the Stormont executive. The British government also agreed to the devolution of justice powers from Whitehall to Stormont within two years of the agreement.
McDowell is again dismissive of denials by Adams that he was ever
in the IRA. “I know it’s untrue. It’s some kind of technicality, that there is no such thing as a member of the IRA, there are only volunteers or whatever,” said the former tanaiste.
“It’s something semantic in his head . . . a Jesuitical distinction of some kind. Or maybe he never swore himself in or something . . . But he was commanding officer of the Belfast Brigade . . . for a long, long time. He was at all material times, from the mid-1970s, on the Army Council. I think he possibly still is. I don’t know what has happened to the Army Council, I don’t think it ever dissolved itself . . . Adams was at all stages in command of the IRA and the head of Sinn Fein.”