Adams faces court grilling over IRA ties in civil case

7 Mar

Mark Hennessy, Ireland Correspondent, Irish Times, March 7th, 2026

Former Sinn Féin leader’s long history of denials of IRA membership will come under the spotlight in a London court next week

Thirty years on, Jonathan Ganesh still dreams about the Algerian man, Zaoui Berezag, who had gone to South Quay Plaza in London’s Docklands on February 9th, 1996 to clean offices in the Midlands Bank.

After finishing his work, Berezag was sitting in his car outside a newsagent’s shop. Also next to the shop was a parked truck containing a bomb left by the IRA. It exploded at 7.01pm.

“I thought he was dead. His brain was hanging out, his skull had gone,” Ganesh remembers, speaking during a break on a night shift in the London hospital where he now works as a psychotherapist.

Berezag, who was left brain-damaged, blind and paralysed, needed round-the-clock care at home for 20 years from his wife, Gemma, and other family members, before dying in a nursing home in 2018.

Ganesh was badly injured in the explosion, which ended the 1994 IRA ceasefire. The blast killed his friends Inam Ul-Haq Bashir and John Jeffries. More than 100 people were injured, many seriously.

On Monday, Ganesh and John Clark, who was injured in the IRA’s 1973 bombing of the Old Bailey in London, and Barry Laycock, who was injured in the IRA’s 1996 bombing of the Arndale Shopping Centre in Manchester, are taking a civil case at the Royal Courts of Justice in London.

Seeking £1 in nominal damages, the three will argue that the former president of Sinn Féin, Gerry Adams, “acted with others in furtherance of a common design to bomb the British mainland”.

The men’s lawyers will argue that the now 77-year-old Adams, a former TD and MP, was “directly responsible” in a variety of roles within the IRA for the decisions to plant the bombs.

The three had wanted to sue him as a representative of the IRA, but two years ago British judge Michael Soole ruled that out, saying the IRA was not “a legal entity”, although he allowed the claims made against Adams personally to continue.

The legal action, which began in 2022, was prompted by the decision of the Conservative government to introduce legacy legislation that would have blocked all legal actions relating to incidents in the Troubles, Northern Ireland’s three-decade conflict.

The legislation was largely intended by the Conservatives to end cases against soldiers and police officers, but Ganesh and his fellow claimants were spurred into action when they realised that it would also cover republicans.

Since then, the three have raised nearly £110,000 (€126,000) to pay for the case.

“There were a few large donations, but most of the money has come in fivers, some in twos and threes. Some in euros too,” says Ganesh.

Legal Safety Net

Two years ago, Adams lost an application to have the three pay his legal costs if he wins. Usually, losers pay the winner’s costs, but the judge ruled against Adams, effectively granting the three a safety net.

Adams has always denied ever having been a member of the IRA and has never been convicted of IRA membership. He was charged with the offence in 1977, but the case was dropped months later because of insufficient evidence.

In 2014, he was held for four days by the Police Service of Northern Ireland on the back of claims made in the Boston College tapes by deceased IRA members Brendan Hughes and Dolours Price.

The two had parted ways with Adams over ending the IRA’s campaign long before they died in 2008 and 2013 respectively. They had alleged that Adams was involved in the 1972 kidnapping and murder of Belfast widow and mother of 10 Jean McConville.

The four days of questioning were condemned by Sinn Féin’s Martin McGuinness as “political policing”. Later, the Public Prosecution Service in Belfast said there was insufficient evidence for a prosecution as it considered the Hughes/Price allegations to be hearsay.

In 1983 Adams threatened to sue The Irish Times for “the monstrous libel” of describing him as “Provisional IRA vice-president” instead of “Provisional Sinn Féin vice-president”. His solicitors complained of what they considered to be a grossly unfounded libel; they claimed he was not then – and never had been – a member of the IRA and that their client had suffered a “grave injury” to his character.

That same year, Adams complained strongly over an edition of ITV’s World In Action called The Honourable Member for Belfast West, which alleged that he had become “the shogun” of the republican movement.

He has challenged public assertions that he was an IRA member many times since, unlike the late McGuinness, his long-time republican colleague, though McGuinness was convicted of IRA membership.

Last year, Adams denied under oath in a High Court defamation action in Dublin that he was a member of the IRA, when he sued the BBC over claims made in its Spotlight programme that he had authorised the killing of IRA informer Denis Donaldson in 2006.

He won that case, and was awarded €100,000 in damages, which he split between Unicef, GAA clubs, and homelessness and suicide prevention organisations in Belfast, and a republican prisoners’ support group.

Although it had the opportunity, the BBC did not appeal the verdict.

Adams’s long-time denial of IRA membership is regarded by many in the republican community – loosely defined – as being a slightly unfortunate, uncomfortable, but nevertheless pragmatic action.

Others are less forgiving, however.

‘Lack of credibility’

Former president of republican Sinn Féin (RSF) Des Dalton said Adams has “carefully constructed a narrative over a long number of years”, but has now “painted himself into a corner”.

Saying that Adams suffers from “a complete lack of credibility”, Dalton, who led RSF from 2009 to 2018, but is no longer a member, told The Irish Times: “It’s quite insulting to a lot of people who did take part in the struggle.

“In the beginning, there was a practical element to all of this, I suppose. But Ruairí Ó Brádaigh [a former president of republican Sinn Féin] had a very simple way of dealing with questions like that, saying: ‘We do not discuss those matters.’ He could have done the same,” Dalton says of Adams.

The history of the Troubles shows Adams’s associations, argues Dalton, pointing to the former Sinn Féin president’s presence at the 1972 Cheyne Walk talks in London with Northern Ireland secretary Willie Whitelaw, when an IRA delegation travelled to meet British government officials.

Seán MacStiofáin, the then IRA chief of staff, made clear that an IRA delegation went to Cheyne Walk: “Seán Ó Bradaigh, Sinn Féin’s director of publicity, wanted to go and was firmly told no,” Dalton recalls.

The case that begins on Monday before Judge Michael Soole will hear testimony from up to 14 witnesses.

The list includes at least one former member of the IRA, and possibly two. Two witnesses have been given court-ordered anonymity, though this was challenged by Adams’s counsel, Edward Craven KC.

He argued that there was no evidence of any real, or immediate risk to life, or serious harm if they were identified, adding that one of the two – known as Witness B – has long commented publicly on matters concerning Northern Ireland.

If they had “held genuine and objectively well-founded fears for their safety if their identities were to become public” that would have been clear from their witness statements, the lawyer argued, unsuccessfully.

The case will involve Adams making his first appearance in a London court, when he will likely face the former director of public prosecutions for England and Wales, Max Hill KC.

Carefully nurtured image

The case matters greatly to Adams, who has carefully nurtured his image and reputation, especially in the United States where he remains his party’s single biggest draw when it raises funds there.

Addressing an Irish-American audience last month in a column in the New York-based Irish Echo, he said the claim now being taken by Ganesh, Laycock and Clark was “unorthodox”.

“I regret all the deaths and injuries. People are entitled to use the law. However, this case is brought decades after these incidents and decades after the Good Friday Agreement brought peace to us all,” Adams wrote.

A number of former British army and RUC/PSNI witnesses “will give hearsay evidence that because I was a senior republican during the conflict I must be responsible for these specific events”, he wrote.

“I had no direct or indirect involvement in these explosions and I will robustly challenge the unsubstantiated hearsay statements that are the mainstay of the claimants’ case.”

Just days before the case begins, the documentary A Ballymurphy Man, which traces Adams’s life and career – and which he co-operated in the making of over five years – will be released on various streaming services.

Asked about the likely consequences of the case, Prof Donnacha Ó Beacháin, of DCU, said historians operated “on the working assumption” that Adams had been a member of the IRA.

A court ruling laying that down in tablets of legal stone could “embolden” some historians and writers to strengthen their findings on Adams in future histories of The Troubles, he said.

If Adams wins, the victory will, for republicans, join last year’s legal victory against the BBC, which, Adams claimed afterwards, had “put manners” on an organisation that “upholds the ethos of the British state in Ireland”.

If he loses, his supporters will likely argue that no Irish republican could have expected justice in a British court from a British judge. Perhaps rehearsing this line, Adams wrote in his Irish Echo column: “This civil action has support from British forces veterans, English Tories, the DUP, other unionist parties and elements of the Loyal Orders.”

However, the international publicity a defeat would bring would place both Adams and Sinn Féin on the back foot and raise the prospect that others might follow the lead of Ganesh, Clark and Laycock.

For Des Dalton, however, there is an element of weariness about it all.

“To be honest, I had not realised that the case was beginning next week. It’s just another occasion where Gerry Adams says he wasn’t in the IRA,” he said.

“His attitude is almost Orwellian, but the accepted version of history matters to him, and to Sinn Féin. That’s what all of this is about: winning the battle of history of The Troubles.”

For Ganesh, a distant relation of Éamon de Valera through his Bruree, Co Limerick-born mother, Patricia Coll, the case is being taken for all those no longer able to have their voices heard.

“Those killed, those who died in pain with their injuries, those who committed suicide – and there have been more of those than people know. Too many people, too much pain,” he said.

“It’s been a very long journey. It has not been easy for us, not been easy at all. Many people thought we wouldn’t be able to get this far. But it was very important that we did.”

Unionists slam Sinn Fein TD who claimed bombing never solved anything

GABRIELLE SWAN, Belfast Telegraph, Match 7th, 2025

A Sinn Fein politician has been lambasted after claiming that bombing never solved anything, while discussing the crisis in the Middle East.

Matt Carthy, a TD for Cavan-Monaghan, was speaking on Virgin's Tonight Show about the attacks on Iran by the US and Israeli military.

The comment was branded “astounding” by DUP MLA Trevor Clarke, who pointed to the IRA's bombing campaign which Sinn Fein politicians regularly refuse to condemn.

First Minister Michelle O'Neill previously claimed there was “no alternative” to IRA violence during the Troubles.

Former Westminster Security Minister and Conservative MP Tom Tugendhat said Mr Carthy's comment was “extraordinary”.

Mr Carthy was speaking in the context of the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.

The TD told the programme: “The UN isn't perfect, but it is the only hope humanity has and therefore I think that it is critically important for independent neutral states [to] actually adhere to and protect our neutrality and become voices globally for conflict resolution.

“There isn't an instance where bombing a country ended up resulting in a better situation, particularly the type of attacks that we are seeing in Iran.

“We can look at Syria, Iraq and Lebanon, there are multiple examples where Israel and US interventions have destabilised their regions, and it is happening again.”

Afterwards, Mr Clarke asked if the TD would like “to let the Sinn Fein MLAs (who are) convicted IRA bombers at Stormont know this”, in reference to the 30-year-long bombing campaign in Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK during the Troubles.

Sinn Fein MLAs Pat Sheehan, Gerry Kelly and Caral Ni Chuilin have convictions in relation to bombing.

Mr Clarke referenced a previous interview in 2022, in which Ms O'Neill said there was no alternative to IRA violence, and a remark from former Sinn Fein MP Michelle Gildernew on a BBC podcast last year that some murders during the Troubles were justified.

Mr Clarke suggested Mr Carthy should speak to “our 'no alternative to IRA bombings' First Minister”.

“Maybe he could stop by Fermanagh and explain to the 'murder was justified' former Sinn Fein MEP, MP and MLA Michelle Gildernew,” he added.

‘16,000 bombs’

“Condemning the bombing of Tehran while saying there was no alternative to planting 16,000 bombs across Northern Ireland is astounding.

“I welcome this course correction by Matt Carthy; hopefully, he extends this commentary to the actions of his party members.”

Mr Tugendhat, meanwhile, took to X to brand Mr Carthy's comments as “extraordinary”.

“For a man in a party governed by the Army Council who, you know, bombed a lot of people, this is frankly extraordinary,” he wrote.

“I know Sinn Fein pretend they've forgotten their murdered victims, but we should not.”

This is not the first time Mr Carthy has been criticised for comments.

In April 2021, he said Provisional IRA member Séamus McElwain was “still held in huge esteem” and “fondly remembered by all who knew him” at a commemoration.

McElwain was shot dead by the SAS in Roslea, Co Fermanagh, in April 1986. He had been attempting to ambush a patrol.

He was also suspected of at least 10 killings and has been blamed for the near fatal gun attack on John Kelly, the father of former DUP leader and First Minister, Arlene Foster.

“Séamus McElwain was only 26 years of age when he was killed in his own country by foreign occupying forces,” the TD said at the 35th anniversary of his death.

“Séamus is still held in huge esteem, very fondly remembered by all who knew him and by a new generation of people from Co Monaghan and Fermanagh and by Irish republicans of all ages.

“Séamus and all of those who fought for Irish freedom continue to inspire us.”

Sinn Fein has been contacted for a response.

TUV fails to stop republican commemoration in Belfast City Hall

MICHAEL KENWOOD, Irish News, March 7th, 2026

THE TUV has failed in an attempt to prevent this year’s Easter Lily launch happening at Belfast City Hall.

The campaign launch has been held in Belfast City Hall previously in 2024 and 2025 by the Belfast National Graves Association.

The event commemorates Irish republicans who died in conflict for Irish sovereign independence. The Easter Lily is worn as a symbol of remembrance for those who died in the 1916 Easter Rising.

At the March meeting of the full Belfast City Council at City Hall, elected representatives by a majority vote approved the event for City Hall on March 24. The committee document says the event amounts to “a reception and speeches focusing on local history” and will accommodate up to 80 people.

In the City Hall vote on a TUV proposal not to hold the event, 17 elected representatives voted in favour, from the unionist parties, while 26 voted against the proposal from Sinn Féin, the SDLP and People Before Profit. The Alliance Party and the Green Party abstained from the vote.

TUV Councillor Ron Mc-Dowell said at the council meeting: “This is an annual event that commemorates active service members of the IRA, and I don’t believe it is something we should be facilitating on Section 75 and Good Relations grounds, within Belfast City Council.

“When I think of the IRA, and I can think of many things, but what I think is about the disappeared, those who were abducted from their homes and tortured, and buried in a shallow grave. I think of Jean McConville, who was dragged screaming from her home, and atrocities on the Shankill, where Thomas Begley killed those innocent civilians, and the Bayardo bomb attack in my own constituency.”

Listing a further series of atrocities from the Troubles period, he said: “I reiterate I don’t think this is an event that we should be holding within this council.”

What aboutery

Sinn Féin group leader Councillor Ciarán Beattie replied at the meeting: “You have listed people killed by the IRA, you haven’t mentioned the other several thousand people that were killed. A lot of them were killed by loyalists, the British Army, the RUC.

“All people have their dead who they remember. Every year outside this building there are commemorations for the RUC and the British Army, the same organisation that murdered people in the streets of Ballymurphy and New Lodge and shot children in the face with plastic bullets. That is the experience in this city.

“If you have a problem with one particular group, then have a problem with them all because if you don’t, you are being selective.

“If you look at other events (that we will be hosting) – the Belfast Bands Forum wouldn’t be our cup of tea, or one we would like to support. But we recognise that is the culture and history for one section of society in this city. We have to recognise there are also other communities in this city, and we have to welcome them all.”

'I forgive the bombers, but my family never recovered':

Nephew of IRA blast victim on 50 years of devastation

SUZANNE BREEN, Belfast Telegraph, March 7th, 2026

AHEAD OF A STORMONT EVENT MARKING THOSE IMPACTED BY TERRORISM, PASTOR STEPHEN THOMPSON OPENS UP ON THE KILLING THAT DROVE HIS LOVED ONES FROM THEIR HOME AND TRIGGERED A SERIES OF OTHER TRAGEDIES

The nephew of a young mother killed in an IRA firebomb in Ballymena 50 years ago has spoken for the first time about how her murder “decimated” his family, with some members never recovering from the devastation.

Yvonne Dunlop burned to death after the device exploded in Alley Katz boutique in Bridge Street in October 1976.

She had shouted a warning to her nine-year-old son, Dennis, who was blown through the shop window with his hair on fire.

One of the bombers, Tom McElwee from Bellaghy, had previously worked in Ballymena as an apprentice mechanic. He died on hunger strike in the H-Blocks five years after the attack.

European Victims of Terrorism Day

Ms Dunlop's nephew, Pastor Stephen Thompson, will share her story on Monday at an event in Stormont hosted by the TUV to mark European Victims of Terrorism Day.

Mr Thompson told the Belfast Telegraph that, after years of anger, he forgives those who killed his aunt. But he said his family never recovered from being “turned upside down” by the IRA.

“Yvonne was just 27 years old. She left behind three young sons. Violence doesn't end when the act itself is over. It travels through generations. It spreads outwards — to children, to siblings, to grandparents,” he said.

“The Troubles aren't distant and clinical for us. Yvonne's death devastated our family. It created a wound that didn't simply heal with time. It changed the course of our lives in ways we could never have imagined.”

The IRA planted 16 firebombs in shops in Ballymena on Saturday, October 9, 1976, causing widespread damage.

One exploded in Alley Katz boutique, where Ms Dunlop had been working.

“It was my granny Mabel's wee shop,” Mr Thompson said.

“She loved her fashion. Yvonne was working that day. It was near the end of her shift, and granny was due to take over. Two women came into the shop. They went into the changing room — a small space with a curtain pulled around it.

She went in to check to check if customer had left anything behind

“When they left, Yvonne went in. She hadn't been suspicious of them, she always went in to check after every customer in case they had left something behind.

“The women had left a shopping bag. Yvonne looked inside and saw the device. She shouted 'There's a bomb. Get out!'

“Dennis was blown through the window. His hair was on fire. The pharmacist next door put it out. Alley Katz burst into flames. Yvonne didn't stand a chance.”

Mr Thompson was 10 years old when his aunt was killed.

“Yvonne was a warm, kind-hearted person,” he recalled.

“She had a huge heart, which was full of love. She adored animals and children. She was a great mother. She was always bringing stray dogs into the house.

“I remember my daddy crying his eyes out for his dead wee sister. I remember opening my granny's door to find Ian Paisley standing there. As the local MP, he had come to pay his condolences.

“After the funeral, there wasn't much talk about Yvonne's murder in our house. My parents wanted to protect us. Where we lived in Antrim hadn't really been touched by the Troubles. I knew nothing about sectarianism or politics.”

Despite the facade of normality, Mr Thompson's parents were struggling emotionally.

“The following year, they made the decision to move to Nottingham,” he said.

“They said what had happened meant they couldn't stay in Northern Ireland any longer. My daddy said that leaving was the only way for him to breathe again. We left the day that I was meant to go to big school.

“I helped load a van with all our belongings as my mates walked in their new uniforms to school.”

Mr Thompson described as “hell” the family's next five years in Nottingham.

“It was an emergency move. We lived with a relative over there in a tiny bedsit,” he said.

“There was just one room for all of us. That was our new home. Daddy was a salesman, but work wasn't always easy to find. We lived off Smash instant mashed potatoes and tins of beans. We had nothing.

“Eventually, we got a house in an estate, but it was a very rough place. Myself, my sister Marlene, and my brother Mark had lost all our friends.

“Life was much harder in Nottingham than it had been in Antrim. We had fields in Antrim, now we were living in the inner city. I remember one miserable Christmas after another.”

Mr Thompson said that his mother was very unhappy, but the change was even worse for his 12-year-old sister.

“Marlene couldn't settle. She fell in with a bad crowd and got caught up with drugs,” he explained.

“I remember dealers coming to the door and threatening daddy over money she owed. Once, when he was grabbed by the collar, I jumped in to save him. It was a horrendous time.

A legacy of suffering

“Marlene became addicted, and that led to her death many years later. Her problems began in Nottingham. I believe her life would have turned out very differently had we never gone there.

“We had left Northern Ireland to escape one form of suffering, only to encounter another. Trauma does not respect geography.”

In 1981 — the year that 10 republican hunger strikers would die in the H-Blocks — Mr Thompson's parents decided to come home.

“Despite everything, Northern Ireland still held meaning, identity and connection for us,” he said.

“It was another sudden decision by my parents. I was just months away from sitting my O-levels when we returned, and the syllabus here was entirely different. It was like heaven being home, but we had nowhere to live. We stayed in a B&B while we waited for a house.”

In August of that year, Mr Thompson's three cousins — Dennis, Terry, and Geoffrey — went to London to meet Ken Livingstone.

After McElwee's death, the Labour leader of the Greater London Council had described him as “not a criminal but a freedom fighter”.

However, the boys became so upset during a discussion on their mother's killing that they were unable to speak to Livingstone, and were taken on a tour of the council building instead.

McElwee and two other IRA members had been arrested on the day of the firebomb attack in Ballymena after a device they were transporting exploded prematurely in their car.

The 18-year-old republican lost an eye, while the second IRA man lost part of his leg and the third lost toes. McElwee was sentenced to 20 years for Ms Dunlop's murder. The charge was reduced to manslaughter on appeal, although the original jail term remained.

After 62 days without food in the H-Blocks, he became the ninth hunger striker to die. In his last written words, he asked for “forgiveness for everyone”.

Ms Dunlop's children had moved in with their grandparents following her killing.

“I don't know how my granny Mabel coped, but she did,” Mr Thompson said.

“After raising six kids of her own, she brought up Yvonne's three boys. I never once heard her complain. My granddad, Nat, died a few years later.

“They said it was from a heart attack, but we said it was from a broken heart because he had never got over losing Yvonne. The pain of burying his own child had marked him permanently.

“And the ripple effect of one murder didn't end with him. Yvonne's eldest son, Dennis, who had been blown through the shop window, also passed away long before his time. His was a life shaped by circumstances that no child should ever face.”

Yvonne's loss is keenly felt to this day.

“Her absence isn't something confined to anniversaries or memories,” Mr Thompson said.

“It's present in everyday moments — family gatherings where her chair is empty, conversations that carry her name, milestones she never saw.

“We weren't a bitter family but, as I grew up, I developed a lot of anger towards the bombers, and that rage is still there in some sections of our family.”

Forgiveness

Mr Thompson was previously a Methodist minister in north Belfast, working on cross-community projects with Fr Martin Magill.

He is now a pastor with Truth Revealed Ministries and a counsellor offering support to addicts. “I came from a good home, but we weren't practising Christians. Coming to faith in adulthood helped me forgive the bombers. I didn't do that for them, but for me.

“It was for my own head and heart. I realised that carrying anger indefinitely let the terrorists still terrorise. It consumed so much mental and emotional energy. Forgiveness lifted a weight that I had carried for too long. It was an act of freedom which brought me peace.”

The Stormont event hosted by the TUV to mark European Victims of Terrorism Day will also hear from Travis Dylan Frain, who survived the 2017 Westminster Bridge attack; Denise Mullen, whose dad Denis was killed by the UVF's Glenanne Gang in 1975; and John Sproule, whose brother Ian was shot dead by the IRA near Castlederg in 1991.

As the 50th anniversary of his aunt's murder approaches, Mr Thompson said it was the right time for him to speak about her.

“I want people to remember how Yvonne lived: that she mattered, that she was loved. Her life had meaning far beyond the violence that ended it. Victims are much more than the way they died.”

‘Stand-off’ over Glenanne Gang documents, court told

ALAN ERWIN, Irish News, March 7th, 2026

THE Secretary of State is allegedly trying to obtain a veto over any police disclosure of sensitive documents in civil actions by relatives of loyalist paramilitary murder victims, the High Court heard yesterday.

Counsel for two bereaved families claimed a dispute between Hilary Benn and Chief Constable Jon Boutcher about handling issues of potential national security could further delay the cases.

The development came as lawyers representing the Secretary of State confirmed he is seeking to intervene in lawsuits centred on alleged security force collusion with the terrorist killers.

Eugene Reavey is suing the PSNI and Ministry of Defence for misfeasance in public office in connection with the murder of his three brothers 50 years ago.

John Martin, Brian and Anthony Reavey were shot dead by masked intruders at the family’s home in

Whitecross, south Armagh in January 1976. Known as the Glenanne Gang, the UVF unit at the centre of the action is believed to have been responsible for up to 120 deaths in a sustained killing spree at the height of the Troubles. The unit allegedly contained members of the Royal Ulster Constabulary and the Ulster Defence Regiment.

Mr Reavey’s case is part of a wider group of litigation brought by families of victims and those wounded in the series of Troubles-era murders and attempted murders.

A second action relates to the double murder of GAA fans Sean Farmer and Colm McCartney at a dummy roadblock in Altnamackin, Co Armagh in August 1975.

With both cases hit by a series of delays related to the disclosure of sensitive documents by the defendants, Mr Justice Rooney has repeatedly insisted the trials will get underway next month.

UK Govt and PSNI at odds

However, it emerged yesterday that the UK government and the Chief Constable are in disagreement about a Public Interest Immunity (PII) process for redacting material on grounds of national security.

Based on a Supreme Court judgment, lawyers for the Secretary of State argued that he should oversee any PII claim over documents to be provided by the PSNI.

The Chief Constable should also seek a ministerial certificate on the issue in all cases involving national security, it was contended.

Counsel representing Mr Boutcher, Oliver Sanders KC, indicated police have made their own PII claims since a previous practice was abandoned two years ago. He described the latest development as an impasse between the PSNI and the government.

“What the NI Office is now seeking, to some extent, is more control over the process,” he added.

Despite the dispute, Mr Sanders insisted the relationship between the Chief Constable and the Secretary of State remains amicable.

But a barrister for the Reavey and Farmer families said he had been left bemused by a disagreement between two branches of the state.

Desmond Fahy KC submitted: “It seems that what is being attempted here is the introduction of a veto on the part of the Secretary of State by invoking national security.”

He argued that government representatives had shown no interest in either family in the 50 years since their loved ones were murdered.

“Here we are, a matter of weeks before the hearings… and the Secretary of State is seeking to intervene in a process ongoing for 18 months or two years on the basis there are issues of national security,” he said.

Stressing the Ministry of Defence’s role as a defendant in the two actions, he claimed the government would have known about the PII process and voiced concern over any potential further hold-ups.

“A stand-off between the Secretary of State and Chief Constable… is going to introduce delay in this process,” the barrister predicted.

Mr Justice Rooney stated: “I don’t want these matters delayed yet again because of a dispute between the Secretary of State and the Chief Constable. It just can’t happen.”

Man charged with 1979 murder of UDR member has bail terms varied

ASHLEIGH MCDONALD, Belfast Telegraph, March 7th, 2026

JAMES DONEGAN WILL BE ALLOWED TO RETURN TO LIVE IN CO CAVAN HOME

A bid to vary the bail of a Co Cavan man accused of murdering a part-time UDR member over four decades ago has been granted.

James Donegan (68), of Bruce Manor, Arvagh, has been charged with murdering Joseph Porter on a date between June 22 and 25, 1979.

Mr Porter (64), a farmer, was shot close to his home at Creggan Road in Mountnorris, Co Armagh.

As well as murdering Mr Porter, Donegan has also been charged with possessing a firearm with intent and being a member of the IRA on the same dates. The accused denies all the charges.

Currently on bail and residing with a female relative in south Armagh, a bid to vary Donegan's bail to allow him to return to Co Cavan was made to Judge Gordon Kerr KC.

Opposing the application, a Crown barrister raised concerns about a risk of flight. He said following Mr Porter's murder the IRA claimed responsibility.

He said the evidence against Donegan falls into three strands: The first is a fingerprint left at the scene which matched the accused.

The second is “bad character evidence” arising from Donegan being arrested following a shooting in Co Louth in 1981 which resulted in his serving a prison sentence.

The third arose from an interview conducted in March 2017 with An Garda Siochana, when he was questioned about Mr Porter's murder.

‘Legitimate target’

The prosecutor told Judge Kerr: “In that interview, he did make comment. He said he had been a soldier in the war and that Mr Porter would have been a legitimate target as he was a member of the UDR.”

Donegan was extradited across the border last April and granted bail later that month.

One of the conditions imposed was that Donegan was to reside in Northern Ireland.

Citing concerns and objecting to the variation, the Crown barrister said Donegan was likely to receive a custodial sentence if convicted of the offences, which could be “an incentive to flee”.

He added: “As a member of the IRA previously, he has access, we say, still to a network which would assist him to flee, if he wished to use it.”

In response, Donegan's solicitor said the only issue of concern was whether or not his client would “turn up for his trial”.

Branding the case against Donegan “weak”, the solicitor said his client had a triple bypass in May 2024.

He added that while on bail Donegan “hasn't been able to avail of getting a GP in the south Armagh area”, and “since his operation he has not been seen by a doctor”.

The solicitor told Judge Kerr that since being granted bail last year, there “hasn't been a single breach”.

Addressing concerns about the risk of flight and not turning up for trial, the solicitor said “all the evidence tips to Mr Donegan meeting this case and turning up, as he had done”.

Donegan's solicitor said a bail variation would allow him “to return to his home, where he can readily avail of medical support”.

Judge Kerr was told by the prosecution the nearest PSNI station is in Enniskillen. He was also told there could be reciprocal arrangements for Donegan to sign his bail at a Garda station.

At the judge's request, Donegan swore an oath on the Bible and confirmed to his solicitor his intentions to honour his bail conditions and turn up for his trial.

Judge Kerr said: “A bail order is a living thing in that it moves on with time, and to be effective, bail should reflect the circumstances involved.

“There is no doubt that the original bail address has turned out to be entirely impractical and has led to significant difficulties in terms of the conditions he has to stay in and impacts on members of his family.''

He added that Donegan could come north to sign his bail once a week at a designated PSNI station, “so that they can be sure of his whereabouts''.

“I also feel arrangements should be made with An Garda Siochana for him to sign at a local station on one occasion per week. Those signings should be spaced so that they cover the week effectively,” he said.

“With those conditions, I then consider it would be proper to allow this man bail. This is not a precedent I am setting. It is a reflection of the circumstances which apply practically in this case.”

As part of his bail variation, Donegan will no longer be electronically tagged, but will remain subject to a curfew.