The family of a Protestant man shot dead in Co Tyrone in 1991 who claim there was garda collusion with his IRA killers have accused the Irish Government of hypocrisy in its approach to the legacy of the Troubles.
Just over a week after President Michael D Higgins said families of the victims of the 1974 Dublin-Monaghan bombings have a right to know the truth, the family of Ian Sproule and the DUP say all victims have that right.
Two IRA gunmen were lying in wait for Ian Sproule when the 23-year-old returned home to his family’s remote farm in Castlederg after a night out on 13 April 1991.
They fired 41 bullets into his car.
A short time later an IRA member called the family home and asked Ian’s father if he had “seen the mess we left for you in the yard?”
The IRA later contacted a newspaper in Co Derry and claimed to have garda intelligence documents which named their victim as a loyalist suspect.
There is no evidence that he was a loyalist paramilitary.
His family has asked successive Irish governments to help them find the truth about what happened, but is still waiting for answers.
“There is no doubt there was collusion in Ian’s murder,” says his brother John.
“I’ve met Simon Coveney, Charlie Flanagan, the Garda Ombudsman, Micheál Martin and it’s like talking to a wall. They promised me everything that they could do to help me that they would, but until today still nothing.
“They have not dealt with legacy at all. Anybody who lived along the border during the Troubles will tell you that the Republic of Ireland played a big role, a lot of the attacks came from there and many IRA members lived there.”
The Smithwick Tribunal found there was garda collusion in the murders of senior RUC officers Harry Breen and Bob Buchanan in south Armagh in 1989.
During the hearings, an RUC assistant chief constable told the inquiry that he believed there had been collusion in the murder of Ian Sproule.
“The Irish Government needs to deal with legacy and to come clean,” John Sproule adds.
“My brother was an innocent civilian. The Irish Government can’t demand the British government to do legacy and then they don’t do it.
“Victims is across the board and to me the way they treated me, they treated me as like a second class citizen. And even worse when chatting to them now they think Ian’s life was worth nothing, and Ian’s life was worth a lot. It’s totally wrong.”
Northern Ireland’s Attorney General last year ordered a fresh inquest into Mr Sproule’s killing, but British government legislation ending all prosecutions and criminal and civil investigations of Troubles-related killings means that at this stage that won’t happen.
Labour Party leader Keir Starmer has said his party will repeal the legislation if it wins the British General Election in July.
The DUP has backed the Sproule family’s campaign and says the Irish Government must do more to address allegations that collusion south of the border was widespread.
The party says that should include following the British government and setting up a public inquiry into the 1998 Omagh bombing which killed 29 people, including a woman pregnant with twins.
It is believed the bomb was prepared in the Republic of Ireland, and that several of those involved in the attack were living there at the time.
A judge in the High Court in Belfast said in 2021 that there was a real prospect that the bombing could have been prevented, and recommended separate public inquiries on both sides of the border.
An inquiry established by the British government will open with preliminary hearings in Omagh in July, but to date the Irish Government has said it does not see merit in a separate inquiry.
“I think the position of the Irish government on legacy is crystallised in our minds in one word and that is hypocrisy,” said DUP leader Gavin Robinson.
“They are very clear, very strong on the frailties of the UK government’s legacy proposals, a postion that I entirely agree with, but when the shoe’s on the other foot, the Irish government has come up short time and time again on the legacy of our troubled past on issues like collusion and its refusal to hold its own public inquiry into the Omagh bombing..
“The Irish Government needs to step up and respond positively and appropriately to victims, to give answers, to support the quest for justice and ensure that truth can be achieved.”
Tánaiste Micheál Martin has said all relevant Government and garda files should be released to inquiries into killings during the Troubles.
26 years after the Good Friday Agreement officially brought an end to the Troubles, this is yet another reminder that Northern Ireland’s past continues to cast a long shadow over the present, and that many questions remain unanswered.
