Prosecution expected over killing of MI5 spy Donaldson
GRÁINNE NÍ AODHA, Belfast Telegraph and News Letter, January 13th, 2026
IRISH JUSTICE MINISTER JIM O’CALLAGHAN TELLS FAMILY THAT PROCEEDINGS ARE UNDER WAY
A prosecution is expected in relation to the killing of Denis Donaldson in Co Donegal in 2006, the Irish Justice Minister has said.
Mr Donaldson, who had previously been a senior Sinn Fein member, was shot dead months after admitting his role as a police and MI5 agent over 20 years.
In 2009, the Real IRA claimed responsibility for his killing.
Mr Donaldson's daughter Jane Kearney has said the family did not accept the claim of responsibility and have called for a public inquiry into his death.
Minister Jim O'Callaghan said yesterday that directions had been received by Gardai to prosecute a person in relation to the case and that “proceedings are under way”.
He made the statement after meeting with Ms Kearney and her husband.
“It has now been nearly 20 years since Denis Donaldson was killed near Glenties, Co Donegal, in April 2006,” he said in a statement.
“It is a matter of regret that it has not yet been possible to bring those responsible to justice. I met today with Mr Donaldson's daughter, Jane Kearney, her husband, Ciaran, and their solicitor to hear directly their concerns regarding the investigation into Mr Donaldson's killing.”
Garda have received direction to prosecute
Mr O'Callaghan said he had assured them that the Garda investigation into the killing “remains active and open”.
He added: “Furthermore, I have been informed by Garda authorities that directions have been received to prosecute an individual for offences in this case and proceedings are under way in this regard.
“In those circumstances, I conveyed to the Donaldson family that I did not consider it appropriate to establish a separate commission of inquiry.
“I emphasised the importance of allowing An Garda Siochana to continue its investigation with a view to bringing the individual before the courts as soon as possible.
“I reaffirmed the absolute commitment of An Garda Siochana to this outcome.”
An Garda Siochana has been contacted for comment.
Boutcher should be sacked as PSNI chief constable over Kenova report
By Austen Morgan, Belfast News Letter, January 13th, 2026
If Jon Boutcher, the chief constable of the PSNI, had behaved in England, Scotland or Wales, as he has done in Northern Ireland since 2016, he would have been sacked – aka permitted to resign.
Consider the indictment.
First, in operation Kenova, he took over nine years and just under £50 million, to investigate only a selection of Troubles deaths that has perpetuated the imbalance on legacy – an imbalance that works against police officers.
He submitted dozens of files to the Public Prosecution Service for Northern Ireland. How many prosecutions did he secure? Answer one: of Martin McCauley for the killing of three police officers in Lurgan in 1982.
McCauley, if he attends court, and is tried and convicted, will be looking at a maximum sentence of two years: there is a high probability he has a comfort letter, based on the numbers of them, given to at least 187 of 228 supporters of Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness who applied secretly to the Northern Ireland Office. I wrote a book about that secret scheme of Tony Blair’s to appease the IRA.
Second, by addressing the problem of legacy through a sentimental focus on a random group of victims, selected by the courts, Boutcher trifled with the feelings of some 3,750 families, who suffered bereavements during the Troubles of 1968-98, the great majority of whom are not getting such an extensive investigation.
Every time a case from the past is discussed on broadcasting, mainstream or social media, thousands of viewers and listeners think about their personal circumstances…sometimes none too compassionately towards those grieving relatives whom Boutcher helped to get special focus, with their team of publicly funded legacy practitioners. The BBC has facilitated this by doing nothing to aid the understanding of legacy and instead adopting a news value of victimhood, especially if the UK state is being blamed.
And third, in a recent case before the Supreme Court, the UK’s highest court, called Thompson, Boutcher lost out to Hilary Benn, over who – the chief constable or the secretary of state – was ultimately responsible for national security.
Failed mission
Boutcher had wanted to do away with ‘neither confirm nor deny’ (NCND) in his bailiwick, the policy in which the state will never confirm that someone was or was not an informer. NCND is a key part of the social contract between the state and agents who work for it, and is crucial in defeating terrorism. The handling of agents is now under legislation (which had not been the position during the Troubles).
To be fair to Boutcher, he did not choose this random selection of killings to investigate. The PSNI, struggling with legacy, and with no leadership from any government before 2020, put together a portfolio of cases under pressure from the courts.
First, there was Freddie Scappaticci, whom Boutcher is moving mountains to identify as ‘Stakeknife’. Scappaticci lived under the protection of the army after 2003, and died in Guildford, Surrey – under the name Frank Cowley - in 2023. The IRA never tracked him down to get their revenge. And Boutcher also failed, even over a prosecution in London for animal pornography, when Scappaticci was alive.
Second, there was Jean Smyth-Campbell, killed in west Belfast in 1972. In December 2021, in a supreme court case called McQuillan, the justices ruled that there was no human right to an effective investigation for her relatives.
The legal reason was a domestic line of legacy legal cases about state killings, called McKerr, trumping a Strasbourg line, also called McKerr (indeed the same person), which focussed on the Human Rights Act 1998 not entering into force until 2 October 2000.
Third, the 1982 killing of three police officers, which led to Martin McCauley being extradited unusually by Dublin in January 2025, only to be given bail by a Northern Ireland court.
And fourth, the so-called Glenanne gang and its purported 127 victims. On 9 December 2025, Hilary Benn used the term ‘Ulster Volunteer Force Glenanne gang’ in the House of Commons. But Boutcher, in the final report, had revealed that there was no gang, but a series of crimes so described: ‘The extent of involvement in sectarian attacks by some members of the security forces was shocking, but we did not see any evidence that it occurred at a political or strategic level.’
MPs to question Boucher tomorrow
Boutcher’s interim report of October 2023 (just before he was made chief constable) and the final report of December 2025, signed off by Sir Iain Livingstone, is doused embarrassingly in Boutcher self-regard: ‘Kenova has from the outset put the interests of victims and families at the heart of its approach. We learned that an outcome through the criminal justice process may in fact not always be achievable or even what is desired. Kenova detectives prioritised listening and being responsive to questions unanswered for decades.’
All the way through the report, Boutcher in effect reiterates 'what a good boy am I'.
He has campaigned on NCND, a highly political question which is not the remit of a senior police officer.
It is one thing for the identity to become widely known, perhaps because the informer admitted it. It is quite another for the state to confirm their identity because it makes informers who will never want to be identified, not even after death, less likely to come forward. Republican terrorists, including dissidents, want to shatter that system.
The UK's highest court understood this. Given that Jon Boutcher has declined so far to resign following the his devastating loss in the Thompson case in the Supreme Court, in which all the judges were unanimous (the devastating nature of that loss was certainly not reflected in BBC reports), what could he do by way of expiation? He could seek to learn about the corrupted criminal justice system, by hosting a series of seminars for his senior officers, publicly or privately, on how legacy might be more simply, but effectively, tackled in ways that do not unfairly target them.
That would involve a plurality of voices, and most certainly dumping exclusive reliance on the radical, anti security force activists with whom he appears to have been besotted.
Tomorrow MPs will question Jon Boutcher and Sir Ian Livingstone on their Kenova report. I trust that they will grill them on the massive cost of it, and the way in which it has worsened the legacy imbalance against the security forces.
• Dr Austen Morgan is a barrister at 33 Bedford Row Chambers in London. He is the author of Tony Blair and the IRA: The 'On The Runs' Scandal and of Pretence: why the United Kingdom needs a written constitution. He is a founding member of the Malone House Group, which campaigns against the unbalanced way in which the legacy of the Troubles is being investigated
We are still arguing over Troubles prosecutions...
but many are happy to wait until the guilty are dead
MALACHI O'DOHERTY, Belfast Telegraph, January 13th, 2026
I would not like to be judged by the sins of my crass and feckless youth.
At 70, you are not the same person you were at 20.
So I would not, for instance, join in the castigation of Reform UK leader Nigel Farage over racist jibes he is alleged to have made against other boys at school.
Not when there is plenty of other stuff to castigate him for anyway.
I would not send Army veterans to jail for murders committed 50 years ago.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer is promising that campaigners for veterans at risk of prosecution over their conduct in Northern Ireland will be pleased with amendments he proposes to make to the Troubles Bill.
This Bill replaces the previous Legacy Act which offered offenders of all stripes here an amnesty in return for disclosure.
Practically everyone in political life here opposed that Legacy Act, including Sinn Fein and the Irish Government.
Actually, I thought there was a lot to be said for it.
Failed prosecutions
Prosecutions have not been succeeding. Soldier F, charged over killings on Bloody Sunday, and soldiers charged with murdering Official IRA man Joe McCann in Joy Street in 1972 were, among others, acquitted.
Hopes of convictions must be low and yet — a point made by veterans campaigner Johnny Mercer on the Nolan Show last Thursday — it is the threat of prosecution that constrains soldiers from coming forward and telling their stories.
No doubt a lot of people did a lot of bad things they could own up to if they had an incentive. Some might even want to do that to clear their consciences, but not at the risk of going to prison.
In the introduction to Gerry Kelly's memoir, Playing My Part, Gerry Adams writes: “There may of course be omissions in how the story is told. How could it be otherwise? I'm sure Gerry has no wish to go back to prison, or to be responsible for others going there.”
Kelly opposed the Legacy Act and has insisted on legislation remaining on the books which will expose him to prosecution if evidence of past crimes emerges.
Yet, with him and with many of the soldiers who campaign against prosecutions, there is the same deep conviction that they were entitled to do what they did. They still stand over it in a way that Farage will not stand over his alleged youthful racist cruelty.
Hutchings case
When Dennis Hutchings was charged in relation to the shooting of John Pat Cunningham, Johnny Mercer and unionist politicians gathered round him.
Mercer said that he did so because Hutchings was “innocent until proven guilty”. Well, a lot of other “innocent until proven guilty” suspects don't get to benefit from the same liberal interpretation of that legal phrasing.
How many of those who supported Hutchings would have condemned him if he had lived and been found guilty? He died of Covid before the trial could be completed.
Just because someone is innocent before the court and must be spoken of in the media as “alleged” rather than guilty does not mean that, in every case, they deserve the endorsement of that innocence by their MP or other political campaigners or that they are likely to get it.
Many of those who spoke up for UVF man Winston Irvine when he was “innocent until proven guilty” were harshly criticised for having done so.
Jeffrey Donaldson, on charges of historical sex offences, is “innocent until proven guilty” and may ultimately be acquitted of the crimes with which he is charged. But I don't see the DUP members who supported Hutchings standing by him.
The preferred option?
If the Army and the campaigners for veterans had acknowledged the brutal and slapdash way in which some of the soldiering was done here then perhaps there would be less urgency about getting prosecutions and more support for the idea of an amnesty with disclosure.
There were killings here as callous and ill-considered as the killing of Renee Good at the wheel of her car in Minneapolis last week by an ICE agent. Yes, then-Prime Minister David Cameron apologised for the massacre in Derry by the Parachute Regiment on Bloody Sunday, but it took a 10-year public inquiry to get that out of the Government.
But all of these concerns will ultimately go away. A young man of 18 at the start of the Troubles in 1969 will be 75 this year.
As we have seen with the veterans of the world wars, their numbers decline year by year and then there are none left and the whole thing is just history.
Some will have died proudly and some unashamed of their crimes and some will have died clutching their secrets. And the whole question of legacy will have gone away. That's one solution — the one I think many prefer.
We just have to keep arguing over the past and deferring agreement until all the guilty are dead.
Drew Harris says prosecuting his father’s IRA killers would make little difference
Mark Hennessy, Irish Times, January 13th, 2026
FORMER GARDA COMMISSIONER SAYS SHORT SENTENCES WOULD NOT WEIGH THE SCALES OF 1989 MURDER
Former Garda Commissioner Drew Harris has said prosecuting the IRA men who killed his RUC officer father in 1989 would make little difference given the short sentences they would receive under the Belfast Agreement.
Speaking in his first interview since retiring last September, Mr Harris said he did not believe the sentences his father’s killers would receive, if prosecuted, would “weigh the scales” in delivering justice for his murder.
He said efforts to deal with Troubles legacy cases would fail in most instances to heal the pain of victims’ families and that the Belfast Agreement failed to take the needs of victims properly into account.
“The failure to address that keeps on resurfacing there and actually continues to make legacy such a contentious space,” he told the My Identity podcast.
Father killed and Mother injured
His father, RUC Supt Alwyn Harris, was killed and his mother was injured when an IRA bomb exploded under their car while they were on their way to church in Lisburn, Co Antrim, on October 8th, 1989.
His father’s killing was “just a shocking blow” and it was “just like somebody had taken a white-hot poker to your soul”, Mr Harris said.
“It really just ripped me and the family in two with grief there,” said Mr Harris, who served as deputy chief constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) before becoming Garda Commissioner in 2018.
Pointing to the difficulties faced investigating often decades-old Troubles killings, Mr Harris said the Historical Enquiries Team run by the PSNI from 2005 found new leads in just 1 per cent of cases.
“For every hundred victims, you have one case where you have some chance of resolution, but you raise hopes, some expectations, with 99 others that aren’t going to be fulfilled,” he said.
“This year, it’ll be 37 years since my father was murdered. Really as a family, we’ve heard nothing about that for 36 years. In truth, I’m a little bit jaded about it all.”
Prosecutions
Prosecutions now would do little to salve his family’s long-held grief, he said.
“Even if the people who murdered my father walked into a police station and confessed, it’s two years’ imprisonment – practically, what difference does that make?” he said, referring to the sentence for people convicted of Troubles-related offences under the Belfast Agreement.
“My mother’s still alive. She’s been now nearly 37 years without my father. The magnitude of the loss – the magnitude of the ongoing loss – is such that two years in prison isn’t going to weigh the scales around that.”
Following his father’s killing, he said he and his wife Jane had “worked hard ... to keep that bitterness away from the family home” and their own four children as they grew up.
Different viewpoints
Mr Harris stressed that others could “take a different view” on prosecutions in historical cases, and he respected that.
Northern Ireland’s society “seems to have failed” to deal with the issues of reconciliation and remembrance, he said. Optimism that was evident in the late 1990s and early 2000s has “really just whittled away”, he said.
Young people have not learned the lessons of the Troubles and have “no experience of what it was like”, he said, noting occasions when large numbers have joined choruses of the Wolfe Tones’s Ooh, Aah, up the ’Ra.
He said he found it “nearly a bit distressing” to hear young people singing this, given “the impact” it has on him and other victims of the Troubles. Young people should know that “the great, great majority of people actually repudiated” the violence of the IRA, he said.
Praising the Garda Síochána, the former commissioner said the relationship members of the force have with their local communities is “just gold”, and far closer than that which is enjoyed by the PSNI.
Questioned about the possibility of a united Ireland, Mr Harris said high-quality policing that deals with crime in every community would do much to generate support for an all-island force, if people voted for unity.
The My Identity podcast is presented by Maynooth University English professor Colin Graham and is a part of the Arins (Analysing and Researching Ireland North and South) research project between the Royal Irish Academy (RIA) and the Keough-Naughton Centre for Irish Studies at the University of Notre Dame.
COURTS HAVE LARGELY FAILED US.
Distributed by the Irish National Caucus, January 13th, 2026
RAYMOND MC CORD'S TESTIMONY IN DUBLIN BEFORE THE OIREACHTAS COMMITTEE ON IMPLEMENTATION OF GOOD FRIDAY AGREEMENT
Fr. Sean McManus, Rep. Eliot Engel, Former Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Raymond McCord, Sr. February, 2020.
COURTS HAVE LARGELY FAILED US.
The courts have largely failed us by consistently allowing 20 to 50 years of delays in many cases including inquests due to the state bodies withholding disclosure documents.
My Son, Raymond Jr., was murdered on the November 9, 1997, by U.V.F members who were proven to be agents working for the Special Branch Department of the RUC/PSNI by the Police Ombudsman Nuala O’Loan’s report on of January 22, 2007, and for the first time in the Troubles, collusion was proven between terrorists in the loyalist UVF proscribed organization and the Special Branch department of the RUC/PSNI. No action has been taken against these serial murderers because of their Special Branch handlers and very senior officers in the police refusals to bring murder charges against them. Special Branch did what MI5 told them to do or not do.
On August 30, 2021, in Belfast City Hall, politicians from both sides of the border signed a declaration drawn up by our cross-community group to reject the British Conservative government's Legacy Act proposals. The only document I am led to believe, to be signed by all the major political parties from both sides of the border before and after partition. At last we all came together because of victims not giving up on fighting the Conservatives attempting to rewrite history by denying victims truth and justice through their appalling Legacy Act.
LABOUR PARTY'S BILL PERVERTS JUSTICE
This new bill's proposals will pervert the course of truth and justice with one politician, the SOS [Secretary of State] for Northern Ireland, deciding which disclosure documents will be made accessible to ICRIR and the Courts. A single politician's decision, instead of the courts, will hide the extent of successive British Governments, its agents and its security agencies direct involvement in thousands of murders during the Troubles. Why is the SOS so determined to use PII in this Bill? TRUTH holds the key to inquests and investigations that lead to convictions and exposure and some form of possible closure for victims’ families.
It is not according to the government in the public interest to know that paid state agents like Scappaticci, Mark Haddock, the IRA, and Loyalist paramilitaries carried out countless murders with immunity from the state and prosecutions in the Courts. The hidden truth of atrocities like Kingsmill, Reavey Brothers, O’Dowd Family, La Mon, Shankill Bombing, Omagh, Birmingham pub bombings Loughinisland etc. The list is endless, plus the individual murders that ran into the thousands, including my own son, Raymond Jr. I must add the many attempts to murder me including using a car bomb, on the orders of a Loyalist leader who was also a British Agent. The agents went up to the highest levels in the proscribed organizations, both Republican and Loyalist.
VICTIMS MUST COME FIRST
The victims' families must always come first, not the blood-drenched hands of the state, its agents, the paramilitaries, and some of the security forces. Democracy is under threat here, and yet there is no shame from this government, only appeasement to MI5 with more of legalizing coverups with this Bill.
There cannot be amnesties for murderers, be they paramilitaries, agents, or state security forces. A uniform is no reason for justifying murder. No one can be above the law. Prosecutions with full disclosure, open courts, and ongoing inquests without special advocates appointed by the state or the courts. Is the SOS perverting the course of justice by hiding documents of his "own" choosing from the Courts and justice system? How can there be robust, full legal investigations of murders or inquests if there isn't full disclosure?
DOES THIS COMMITTEE BELIEVE THE LIES?
I ask the committee, do the members believe if anybody involved in this legacy bill proposals and structure can be believed? Labor promised to scrap the Bill. At a victim’s event in Ulster University in Belfast, I shared the platform with our former Lord Chief Justice Sir Declan Morgan, who stated to the audience that ICRIR would have access to all disclosure documents.
At a meeting in the British Embassy in Dublin in 2024, Hillary Benn was asked by Stephen Travers in front of 10 people, if the ICRIR would have access to documents hidden by the government using PII, Benn's reply was predictable, “Absolutely not!” Sir Declan told the audience in Ulster University that if documents were missing, he would send his staff to go and get them. Hilary Benn is saying that won't happen. We know why.
This bill, drawn up with great influence and guidance from MI5, is nothing more than a follow-up on the Conservatives' Legacy Act, and we reject it.
I would also like to ask Mary Lou McDonald and Gavin Robinson to agree to seek disclosure from Republican and Loyalist paramilitaries on the murders they carried out. Politicians need to forget orange and green politics and look upon victims as people not as statistics, as Protestants or Catholics.
I would also draw the attention of the committee to the atrocity of the Birmingham pub bombings. Families having to fund-raise to take it to the courts, Bombings not covered by the G.F.A, why not? It appears to the Birmingham victims’ families that both the British and Irish governments are lacking in integrity and courage.
BRINGING THE YOUNG PEOPLE TOGETHER
I would also like to ask this committee to support our initiative in bringing the young people of both sides of our communities north and south of the border together, to listen to the victims of the Troubles telling their stories. We have done a number of events at Oakgrove Integrated College in Derry with the help of its head teacher, Mr John Harkin, who has supported me with these events. Victims instead of politicians explaining the pain and heartache of division and sectarianism.
Does this committee not find it incredible or even possible that Unionists, Nationalists, Irish, and NI politicians would stand together against the British government in support of all our innocent victims? I believe that truth and justice bring us together irrespective of politics, color, or religion. This committee has a choice of sitting on its hands or showing its continuing support of the victims' families in rejecting this Bill, as the politicians did from both sides of the border on the 30th of August 2021 in Belfast. We will not accept half-truths. Like any parent, brother or sister, son or daughter, we want to know who murdered our loved ones, whether the killers are agents or not. Our loved ones human rights were taken away from them by murder, let's all make sure the families human rights aren't taken away by Labor's U-turn on truth and justice. Truth and Justice don't come in Green or Orange labels, it comes with support, respect, and a victims' friendly Bill to those that suffered the most and continue to suffer today, THE VICTIMS AND THEIR FAMILIES.
NO INQUEST FOR MY SON AFTER 28 YEARS
Today, over 28 years since my son's murder, with still no inquest, and I, on behalf of my family and the Truth and Justice Movement and other victims, thank all of you here today. Justice for Raymond JR and all the victims.
Raymond McCord Sr.
Kate Nash
Julie Hambleton
Billy McManus
Michael Gallagher
John Teggart
Cathy McIlvenny
Victims of crime 'held to ransom' by barrister strike, Long says
By Rebecca Black, PA, Belfast News Letter, January 13th, 2025
Justice Minister Naomi Long said the decision of barristers to go on strike is 'at odds with reality'.
Northern Ireland’s Justice Minister has said she is “perplexed” at what she has termed a decision by the Criminal Bar to “hold victims to ransom” by striking.
Criminal barristers started the strike action last Monday in a long-running dispute over fees paid for legal aid work.
The escalated action has effectively halted Crown Court cases involving people who required legal aid.
The barristers have argued it is a “last resort”, and that legal aid fees are worth less than half what they were worth in 2005 when they were set.
16% increase in fees on offer
Naomi Long said a recent 16% uplift will amount to an annual increase of £11.5m in legal aid fees, which comes in the context of her department’s budget being “over £220m worse off today than if it had merely kept pace with inflation”.
She insisted further evidence was needed for further increase.
She told MLAs that in one week alone 10 trials, 57 arraignments and 22 sentencing hearings were directly affected by the strike action.
She highlighted the families of murder victims Natalie McNally and Chloe Mitchell as among those waiting for justice for their loved ones.
Ms Long said all options are on the table, including negotiating potential derogations, but her preference would be to see resolution with the Criminal Bar Association (CBA).
Making an oral statement to MLAs in the Assembly on Monday, she said many “will be equally perplexed”.
“The decision of the CBA to effectively hold victims of crime and the wider justice system to ransom in order to leverage further significant fee increases is at odds with reality,” she said.
“It is at odds with the reality of what has taken place since my return to office, with the reality of what has been achieved, with the reality of what the CBA has themselves agreed, and it is very much at odds with the reality of the trauma and suffering of the victims and witnesses who are being impacted by this unreasonable and unwarranted withdrawal of services.
“The suffering of victims of crime should never be used as leverage.
“Trauma should never be a bargaining chip; however, that feels very much like the current situation.”
’High quality’ policing service could ensure ‘legitimacy’ of new force in united Ireland
PAUL AINSWORTH, Irish News, January 13th, 2026
Ex-Garda commissioner and PSNI deputy chief constable about police reform in united Ireland
FORMER Garda Commissioner and PSNI Deputy Chief Constable Drew Harris has said an all-island police force gaining “legitimacy” in unionist and loyalist areas in the event of a united Ireland would be a “generational question”.
Mr Harris, who retired from his role leading the Garda last year, suggested being “responsive” to victims of crime and providing a “high quality” policing service could bring legitimacy to all areas “in time”.
He shared his thoughts on a possible future of policing in Ireland on the My Identity podcast with Professor Colin Graham of Maynooth University.
Asked about an all-Ireland force post-reunification, Mr Harris said that with an estimated strength of over 20,000 sworn officers, it would be second only to London’s Metropolitan Police in terms of size across Ireland and Britain.
He said joining up the existing two forces would be a “huge undertaking which would take probably a number of years”.
The host asked Mr Harris – who served as the PSNI’s deputy chief constable from 2014 to 2018 before taking on the role of Garda Commissioner – about the potential of policing in unionist/loyalist areas post-unification.
‘massive question of legitimacy’
Professor Graham said there would “presumably be a massive question of legitimacy” regarding the policing of those areas in the north.
Mr Harris, who is from a Protestant background with roots in Co Donegal, compared any future all-island force to the early years of An Garda Síochána following partition, which he said had a “contentious beginning” before finally earning the trust of the public.
“The legitimacy will be a generational question,” he said, adding that the past casts a “long shadow”.
“There’s another route into this, and again, the Patton Report for all its strengths missed a lot of areas around the importance of crimefighting, the importance of actually protecting the vulnerable,” he said.
“We have a huge epidemic of violence against women. There are routes into protecting people who are vulnerable in this society, on this island, which actually then does bring legitimacy. Being responsive to victims and providing a high-quality service – if you’re doing that…in time society finds it difficult to decry what you’re doing.”
He added: “The past is going to be there and it’s constantly going to be dredged up…we can’t avoid that. But perhaps the way through that then is the manner in which we would provide the police service.”
Speaking of the policing in the Republc post-partition, Mr Harris said: “When you take the case of An Garda Síochána, they went from very contentious beginnings through the 20s and 30s, and established themselves in their legitimacy within the Irish state.
“So it’s not that it can’t be done, it’s just that the examples of it being done are pretty rare.”
Mr Harris spoke of “two different cultures around policing on the island of Ireland”, which is one of the “first things which would have to be addressed” in the event of a new force being established.
“An Garda Síochána’s strength still remains around that local connection, that people know who their local Garda are,” he said.
“You couldn’t say that around Northern Ireland in terms of people knowing who their local police officer is.
Early optimism about reconciliation Legacy ‘whittled away’
“Part of the behaviour of Garda members, which you couldn’t write into a strategic plan, but is just gold – they involve themselves in all aspects of life outside of their career… be it sports or charity work.
“Not here in Northern Ireland, so that would have to be addressed.”
Earlier in the interview, he said there had been a “failure” regarding reconciliation on legacy issues, and that the optimism of the late 90s and early 2000s had been “whittled away”.
He spoke of the example of “ooh ah up the Ra” chants by young people with no experience of the Troubles, which he said was “distressing” to victims, including himself, with his father, an RUC officer, having been killed by an IRA booby trap bomb under his car in 1989 – an attack that also injured his mother.
Meanwhile, Mr Harris said that when he became Garda Commissioner in 2018, he faced an “element of prejudice” in terms of sectarianism, but mostly only on social media and from a “very small number” of users.
Children in Northern Ireland victims of AI deepfake abuse images
ALLISON MORRIS, Belfast Telegraph, January 13th, 2026
COMPLAINTS MADE TO PSNI, WITH CREATION OF PICS TO BE CRIMINALISED
Teenage girls are being subjected to deepfake abuse images in Northern Ireland, with police investigating children having their clothing removed via Artificial Intelligence (AI).
SDLP MLA Cara Hunter, speaking at an online safety event organised by Ofcom, revealed she has been contacted by girls and their families who have been victims of image abuse.
It's understood several victims have made complaints to the police.
Ofcom (Office of Communications) is the independent regulator for the communications industries.
The watchdog announced yesterday that they have launched an investigation under the UK's Online Safety Act into Grok, the AI chatbot owned by Elon Musk's X platform.
Changes to Grok, introduced at Christmas, have allowed users to create and share undressed images of people — including children — which may amount to criminality.
Ms Hunter — who was previously the victim of a fake pornographic video — said she could not “in good conscience” continue to post on the app in its present form, adding that it had shown “complete negligence in protecting women and children online”.
Speaking at the Ofcom event in Stormont yesterday she said that the use of AI as a tool of abuse was “deeply concerning”, adding that she had been contacted by constituents who had been “victims of the deepfake abuse images, including some who were under the age of 18”.
‘Monetarising abuse’
X has now limited the use of the image function to those who pay a monthly fee.
Ms Hunter criticised what she said was an attempt “to monetise abuse” saying the online arena “cannot be allowed to be an unregulated wild west”.
Jess Smith from Ofcom confirmed that as of this week the watchdog has launched a formal investigation into Grok, and the regulator has been working closely with the government in relation to the Online Safety Bill.
Previous investigations have concentrated on the action of pornography providers and the regulation of their sites. This is the first time the body is investigating the running of an AI chatbot.
DUP Junior Minister Joanne Bunting also spoke at the event calling for “more data” to be collected in order that the scale of the issue can be properly assessed with “solid, evidence-based” information. “Predators” who engage in image based sexual abuse should not be allowed “in our heads and in our homes”, she said.
Sinn Fein Junior Minister Aisling Reilly said that the gathering was “a timely event” given the recent use of Grok to generate abuse images.
She added that as a woman in public life she had been subjected to online abuse “which can grind you down”.
She said that Grok had shown the dangers of what can happen “when safety is not built in”.
Technology Secretary Liz Kendall told MPs yesterday that creating non-consensual intimate images will become a criminal offence from this week.
Ms Kendall labelled AI-generated images of women “tied up and gagged, with bruises, covered in blood and much, much more” as being “weapons of abuse”.
Making a statement in the Commons, the Technology Secretary said the Internet Watch Foundation “reports criminal imagery of children as young as 11, including girls sexualised and toddlers”, she said.
“This is child sexual abuse.
“We've seen reports of photos being shared of women in bikinis, tied up and gagged, with bruises, covered in blood, and much, much more.
“Lives can and have been devastated by this content which is designed to harass, torment and violate people's dignity.
“They are not harmless images.
Weapons of abuse
“They're weapons of abuse, disproportionately aimed at women and girls, and they are illegal.”
Ms Kendall said creating or requesting to create non-consensual intimate images will become a criminal offence this week after legislation on it was passed last year.
She said she would make it a “priority offence” in the Online Safety Act.
Meanwhile, British AI founder James Drayson said AI models with the power to generate harmful images should never have been released.
Mr Drayson, the chief executive and co-founder of AI firm Locai Labs said his company had “ taken a hard stance that we are not releasing any image-generation models because of the risk an image-generation model, as we've seen with Grok, can breach human rights further than just a text-based system.”
Mr Drayson said he believes AI companies should not release models that require further development to keep users safe, saying Grok was a failure on Elon Musk's part.
“It's been proven that, clearly, the guardrails they have placed are not strong enough and, right now, there isn't much more they could have done because these models are in these current states.
“They shouldn't have released it, and I completely understand why there are calls for the banning of X if Elon Musk is continuing this stance that they're not going to change anything about it.”
In response to threats that ministers may push for a UK ban on X, Mr Musk has accused the UK Government of being “fascist” and trying to curb free speech.
Cara Hunter's fight against deepfakes exposes failures in protecting women
JOHN LAVERTY, Belfast Telegraph, January 13th, 2026
ANALYSIS
It has never been easy for young women such as Cara Hunter to be taken seriously in frontline politics.
Being the girlfriend of the SDLP leader's brother certainly didn't help silence critics when the then 24-year-old Ms Hunter was co-opted to the Assembly ahead of more experienced candidates in 2020.
But the eloquent, articulate, US-educated Cara has since proven herself to be a more than competent Member of the Legislative Assembly, despite enduring the sort of scrutiny and online abuse no male counterpart will ever encounter.
It was predictable, too, that her phone would light up like the last Christmas tree of the festive season during the ongoing global debate over Elon Musk's creepy Grok 'assistant' helping pervs digitally undress, sexualise and publish non-consensual images of women, girls and even children on X.
Unfortunately, 'Cara Hunter' and 'deepfake' are words that certain neanderthals are happy to fuse together when exploring the web's grubbier regions.
And when Grok, the artificial intelligence chatbot on one of the world's largest social media platforms, was recently made free to all and sundry, it was lifting a rock on the parasites.
Musk has belatedly switched off this tawdry tool — to all except paying subscribers of X who can be identified if it's misused — but not before tens of thousands of sexually suggestive or 'nudifying' images had been created in the wake of a system update on what was formerly Twitter in December.
That was a battle won by high-profile female campaigners such as Cara, TV presenter Maya Jama and New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, but the war is far from over.
There are many other Grok-style bots out there; further proof that no matter what advances are made in the tech world, a way will always be found for women to be disadvantaged by it.
Cara, who first spoke about the grotty Grok issue last week, still shudders when recalling having to explain to older relatives that the hardcore pornography they, and thousands of others, were seeing — with her apparently the 'star' of it — wasn't real life.
‘Deep fake’ with real consequences
Being asked in public for oral sex by a brazen male stranger in the run-up to the 2022 Assembly elections was, however, very real.
Ironically, the existence of a similar deepfake wouldn't make such a dent in the public psyche if it happened in today's more tech-savvy world, but AI was in its infancy in April 2022, when Cara was 26 and about to receive a Facebook message asking, “Is that you in the video … the one going round on WhatsApp?”
Nearly four years on, the one-time youngest female deputy mayor of Derry City and Strabane Council still doesn't know where the deepfake video came from — and there's still no effective legislation in Northern Ireland about the sharing of such grubby online content.
The PSNI informed her at the time that “no crime has been committed” and, even if that wasn't the case, they didn't have the means to investigate an encrypted platform where users — but not victims — have a right to privacy. Cara has since been campaigning vigorously for consent-based legislation, while reluctantly accepting that it could take years to be enacted.
In England and Wales, the Online Safety Act 2025 has made the sharing, creation and requesting of deepfake intimate image abuse illegal and, here, the consultation process on plans to criminalise it closed last October.
But the legal world will forever be striving to catch up with Silicon Valley's rapid technological advances.
The problem is not legislation itself, but the tangible enforcement of it and, meanwhile, advice on blocking errant accounts is laughable when it's the platform itself generating abuse in the first place.
Meanwhile, Cara Hunter continues in the most marginal seat in Northern Ireland, which she won by just 14 votes, just a couple of weeks after the deepfake business made national headlines.
She can only guess what effect it had on the electorate, and it certainly wasn't one of the issues she had planned to become known for.
Mental health was right up there, championed by a fledgling politician who had no idea how much her own sanity was about to be challenged.
She's also had to deal with a pituitary (brain) tumour which, mercifully, is not malignant but can, if not carefully monitored, affect sight and fertility. The best medicine, however, is steering clear of stress; try telling that to someone on daily medication, who is recently married, gearing up for another Assembly election next year — and dealing with the calls that invariably come in every time a Grok-like creature rears its ugly head in cyberspace.
Cara recently admitted in an interview with the Guardian that her parents wouldn't be aggrieved if she left Stormont behind for good.
That, however, would make her a regrettable loss to politics — and X, a friend to so many of Cara's contemporaries, would be among the first platforms to report it.
Stormont leaders speak out on NI Commonwealth Games 'flag conversation'
CLAUDIA SAVAGE, Belfast Telegraph and Irish News, January 13th, 2025
First Minister Michelle O'Neill has said she regrets that the discussion of the Northern Ireland Commonwealth Games team has got “caught up in a flag conversation”.
Conal Heatley, chief executive of Commonwealth Games Northern Ireland (CGNI), has said it is awaiting guidance from the Executive on which flag the team will compete under in the Glasgow 2026 Games.
But the First Minister said while she would do “whatever I can do to help them” it was up to CGNI to decide.
DUP leader Gavin Robinson said “there's no need for change” from the team's previously used flag of the Ulster Banner.
Mr Heatley told the BBC the Ulster Banner “does hold massive cultural significance, we recognise that, for a section of community, but it is not an inclusive emblem”.
In the absence of a flag the team will use the logo of the CGNI, which first raised the issue three years ago.
An £800,000 report by the Commission on Flags, Identity, Culture and Tradition, which aimed to address controversies over flags and emblems, has been gathering dust in Stormont since 2021.
Speaking to reporters, Mr Robinson said he is “not sure why this issue has arisen”. “I see members of our community, be they unionist, nationalist, of Protestant faith or Roman Catholic faith, all proudly standing by the Northern Ireland flag when they participate in games,” he said.
“So the injection of this unnecessary political request I don't think is helpful. I'm not sure what the outcome is going to be either. But from our perspective there's no need for change.”
Ms O'Neill said all sports should be inclusive and commended the association for “trying to actually get an agreed way forward”.
She told reporters at Stormont: “I believe there's some suggestion on their part that perhaps to be inclusive and to reflect all of the membership of all those athletes that will go out and compete, that they're suggesting perhaps using their own team logo.”
‘Whatever I can do to help’
She added: “They didn't feel themselves that what they had was reflective or inclusive so I commend the work they're doing and whatever I can do to help them, I'm here to do so, but I do believe that the suggestion that's been mooted - that they go with their own team logo - I think that's a fine way forward.”
TUV leader Jim Allister said: “Let us be clear about what these are: they are the Commonwealth Games. The Head of the Commonwealth is His Majesty the King. It is therefore extraordinary that offence should be taken at the British Crown appearing on a flag intended to represent Northern Ireland at a Commonwealth event.
“The Ulster Banner also includes the Red Hand of Ulster — a symbol that is not the preserve of any one tradition. It is widely used across Northern Ireland, including in sporting contexts such as Tyrone GAA. To suggest that such a flag is somehow inappropriate is both historically and culturally illiterate.”
A spokesman for the Ulster Unionist Party expressed “concern”, adding: “It is deeply regrettable that Commonwealth Games Northern Ireland has chosen to discontinue the use of the Ulster Banner for athletes representing this place.
“Matters relating to flags and anthems are long established by convention, and no change should have been made without clear guidance from the Northern Ireland Executive. In the absence of such guidance, the status quo should have remained.”
50,000 now on housing waiting lists in the north
CONOR SHEILS, Irishnews, January 13th, 2026
BIGGEST BACKLOGS IN FOYLE AND BELFAST
HOUSING waiting lists across Northern Ireland are set to hit 50,000 applicants after Stormont built 30% fewer social homes than planned.
The latest figures show 49,588 applicants were on the waiting list for the last quarter of 2025.
Figures released by the Department for Communities give a geographical breakdown for June last year.
The largest housing backlog of any area in the north was the Foyle constituency, with over 5,000 households waiting, and making up more than one in tenth of the entire Northern Ireland total.
North Belfast had the second-largest backlog with 4,627 applicants waiting, followed by West Belfast with 4,371 and South Belfast with 3,493.
At the other end of the scale, Mid Ulster had the smallest number with 1,394 applicants, followed by Strangford (1,732) and North Down (1,947).
The longest typical wait times were in South Down at 45 months, nearly four years.
Housing waiting lists across Northern Ireland are set to hit 50,000
Belfast West and Lagan Valley both had typical waits of 38 months, while Foyle and East Derry had 37-month waits.
The shortest typical waits were in Fermanagh South Tyrone at 25 months, followed by East Antrim at 26 months, and Upper Bann and West Tyrone at 28 months each.
However, even the shortest waits exceeded two years, with the overall Northern Ireland median standing at 33 months – nearly three years.
The figures, released by Communities Minister Gordon Lyons in response to an Assembly question by SDLP Newry and Armagh MLA Justin McNulty, show the scale of Northern Ireland’s social housing crisis.
Building homes is 30% below target
The news comes as Stormont faces criticism for building just 1,410 social homes in 2024-25 – 30% below its target of 2,000 per year.
The Department for Com munities has said it intends to build just 1,750 social houses in the financial year ahead, again falling below their initial target of building 2,000 per year.
SDLP Newry and Armagh MLA Justin McNulty described the figures as “an absolute disgrace”.
“Over recent years social housing waiting lists have spiralled out of control, with more families added every year while far too few homes are being built to meet demand,” he said.
“By the end of June last year more than 49,000 people were on the waiting list, having waited an average of over four years.
“Even those fortunate enough to be allocated a home waited around two and a half years. That is an absolute disgrace.
SDLP Newry and Armagh MLA Justin McNulty
“This crisis is the direct result of successive Executives failing to take the housing emergency seriously. It extends beyond social housing to affordable and private rented homes and has been made worse by the continued decline of our wastewater infrastructure.
“This year the Executive is on course to miss its own modest social housing target. With tight budgets and a lack of new thinking it is hard to see how this situation will improve without a change in approach.
“These figures represent real families across the North spending years on a waiting list without the security of a home. That failure must be confronted urgently with an ambition to reduce these waiting lists and build the homes families need.”
The Department for Communities has been contacted.
The cost of health delays is always paid by the patients
Pro Fide Et Patria, Irish News, January 13th, 2026
THE two stories sit uncomfortably beside each other on our front page, yet together they tell a single, troubling truth about the state of our health service: too often, dignity and safety are treated as optional extras rather than core obligations.
On one hand, we learn that Northern Ireland’s health estate is “crumbling”, with a staggering £1.6bn repair backlog, including £251m classed as high risk and £12m needed to address serious fire safety issues.
On the other, a family from Co Derry describes the degrading reality of changing a disabled young woman on a toilet floor because fewer than one in five hospitals have proper changing place facilities. Different problems, same root cause: chronic underinvestment, inertia and an acceptance of standards that would be deemed unacceptable elsewhere.
“Hospitals are not shopping centres or leisure venues; they are places people attend when they are unwell, vulnerable or anxious. The idea that a disabled person might be forced to remain wet.. should shame us all
Fire safety is not an abstract concern. A “substantial risk” was identified at wards in the Royal Victoria Hospital last summer, while tens of millions are required just to ensure fire doors and compartmentation do what they are meant to do. The Health Minister assures us that buildings are assessed as being in a “safe state” and that mitigations are in place. But mitigations are not solutions, and reassurance rings hollow when the scale of the problem so vastly outstrips the funding available to address it. A £5.5m bid covering barely a third of one per cent of the backlog is not a plan; it is an admission of paralysis.
The same pattern emerges in the provision of changing place toilets. Legislation introduced in 2022 requires such facilities in new public buildings, a tacit acknowledgement that basic accessible toilets are often insufficient for people with complex needs.
Yet in existing hospitals, families are told there is no central funding, no plan, and that they should ring ahead to make “arrangements”. For parents who must lift an adult child onto a filthy floor, padding it with coats or blankets, that language feels detached from reality.
Hospitals are not shopping centres or leisure venues; they are places people attend when they are unwell, vulnerable or anxious. The idea that a disabled person might be forced to remain wet, or to leave the hospital entirely to find a suitable toilet elsewhere, should shame us all. It is a fundamental question of dignity and equality.
Ministers and officials frequently point to the age of the estate, evolving standards and severe financial pressures. All of that is true. But it is also beside the point. Standards evolve precisely because society decides that what was once tolerated is no longer acceptable.
The longer we accept “making do”, the further we drift from the health service people deserve.
