Adams: Include loyalist killers’ families
PARTY BACKS PAYMENTS FOR ‘ALL VICTIMS’
GERRY Adams has said the families of dead loyalist killers behind some of the most heinous murders of Catholics “deserve acknowledgement” and should receive a £12,000 payment.
He made the remark after revealing that his party backs the idea of giving the money to the next-of-kin of every victim of the Troubles.
The recommendation by the Consultative Group on the Past has since been rejected by Secretary of State Shaun Woodward. Had it been approved, the money would have been paid to the families of every one of the 3,720 people who died because of the conflict, regardless of the circumstances of those deaths.
Controversially that would also have included notorious killers such as Shankill Butcher Lenny Murphy, who was shot dead in 1982 by the IRA, a decade after his loyalist gang brutally murdered up to 30 people.
Mr Adams said he thought the recommendation was a “good proposal” and should be accepted by the British and Irish governments.
The Sinn Fein policy is at odds with previous comments by its party’s junior minister Gerry Kelly. A month after the proposal was made Mr Kelly said it was “clearly a mistake” because it had caused so much controversy.
Mr Adams said the payment should include the families of Murphy and LVF leader Billy Wright – who was thought to have been responsible for dozens of murders before he was shot dead in the Maze Prison by the INLA.
“This is about families and it is very very important that we remember, whatever about the notoriety of the individuals that you have named, that their families deserve acknowledgement,” he said.
“A young cousin of mine was butchered, Kieran Murphy.”
Mr Murphy, a Catholic, was shot dead by the UVF in 1974.
“I have been shot myself and have other family members killed by the British forces. We all need to be very magnanimous,” Mr Adams said.
Mr Adams criticised the “public wobble” of Mr Woodward who rejected the proposal following fierce reaction from IRA victims and unionist politicians.
“More alarming was the response of Shaun Woodward who during a difficult period in this process whipped this off the table and dashed on to [BBC radio programme] Good Morning Ulster in order to do that,” he said.
The family of IRA member Thomas Begley, who was killed planting the Shankill bomb, would have been eligible for the same payout as the families of each of the nine people killed in that attack.
It is unclear whether the family of RUC constable Allen Moore, who shot dead three Sinn Fein members in the party offices on the Falls Road before killing himself, would have been eligible for the payment.
“When you talk to unionists – and I do – when you talk to them quietly and ask them would they not acknowledge that the suffering of the families of IRA volunteers is the same as the families of British soldiers, some do accept it,” Mr Adams said.
“We need to get away from the hierarchy of victims.”
