McDowell names Adams and McGuinness as members of IRA Army Council.

mike65

And whatsmore he won't get sued for doing so.

The Min for Justice made his comment during an interview on Today FM.

Mike.

Cork

This was not a big surprise.

SF & the IRA were always 2 sides of the same coin.

No Doubt Adams will insist that he was never a member of the IRA.

Let the likes of Adams, Ferris and McGuinness sue.

They won't.

billy the squid

Martin McGuiness is on RTE radio 1 now Defending himself. still answering questions with out answering them.

ReefBreak

He said McDowell's comments were not true, but stopped short of calling him a liar. Personally, I wouldn't believe one single syllable of what comes out of the mouth of Adams/McGuinness.

shoegirl

Martin McGuinness has long since been established to have been a major PIRA leader in Derry in the 1970s. Even Nell McCafferty in her autobiography explicitly mentions this. Its also believed that Adams was chief of staff at some point.

However whether they still play a major role in today's army council is unknown (though highly probable).

true

I think the security services of the UK would know this, plus the Gardai intelligence. Hence the UK, Irish government, PSNI, Gardai, US envoy etc all making statements along the same lines.

Rew

true wrote:

I think the security services of the UK would know this, plus the Gardai intelligence. Hence the UK, Irish government, PSNI, Gardai, US envoy etc all making statements along the same lines.

Not to mention the our own Military Intelligence people...

ArthurDent

Ahern denies knowing make-up of IRA council

http://www.rte.ie/news/2005/0220/northpolitics.html

The old PD/FF 2 step on this whole SF/IRA affair, is getting really really annoying.

MacDowell and Dermot Ahern make a statment naming Adams, McGuinness and Ferris as members of IRA council and the Bertie steps up and says "nobody told me" WTF. Is he the taoiseach or not?

Seems like Adams in not the only political leader here not in control of his people.

Sponge Bob

One has vague memories of Slab vs the Sunday Times , Slab lost .

cal29

The thing is if they are on the IRA army council or even if they were just members of the IRA they cannot say yes actually micheal mcdowell is right me and gerry and martin are all on the IRA army council
it is still an illegal organisation that would be setting themselves up for a nice long prison sentence

AmenToThat

billy the squid wrote:

Martin McGuiness is on RTE radio 1 now Defending himself. still answering questions with out answering them.

Id nearly incriminate myself answering back to that right wing bigot McDowell. Let him howl on to his hearts content because more and more of the Irish public are getting fed up of his rantings without producing even a shredd of evidence.

Sponge Bob

Flick is a nasty unreconstructed blueshirt but he and the shinners they deserve each other.

Its payback for all the boredom with this silly "Process" and Mc Guinness saying sitYEE-AYshun ad nauseum the po faced moron .

Consider it a karma thing and feck due process as long as the plod keeps finding heaps of burnt banknotes as they go along.

SF shoulda done the deal with Trimble , now they face a slippery slope into relative oblivion .

AmenToThat

Sponge Bob wrote:

Consider it a karma thing and feck due process as long as the plod keeps finding heaps of burnt banknotes as they go along.

Apparrently there were no burnt banknotes.
BTW the only ones found with the currency so far are a Cork businessman with no connection to SF a dissadent Republican (Real IRA) and a sum of money found on a premises frequented by the PSNI/RUC officers.

dieselfreak

:mad:

AmenToThat wrote:

Apparrently there were no burnt banknotes.
BTW the only ones found with the currency so far are a Cork businessman with no connection to SF a dissadent Republican (Real IRA) and a sum of money found on a premises frequented by the PSNI/RUC officers.

For Fu*k sake do you honestly believe this shi*e. The IRA robbed the damn bank. The SF heads new about it.

The "drop" in the country club, is simply the seed of doubt for the core supporters of SF/IRA, who will cling on to this, as another conspiracy by the British Government.

As far as I'm concerned both sides of the political divide have the most hell bent criminals, who are seeing the peace process bring an end to the organisations that legitimised their lust for money and power.

gandalf

Actually I would view the currency found in the country club, which is one for PSNI or retired PSNI/RUC officers as a threat than someone trying to say they pilfered the loot from the Northern Bank.

While I am no lover of Herr Flick or many of his policies he has now put it up the Grizzly and Martin, either put up or shut up or sue or don't and if you don't we all know what that means. Wink Wink knudge knudge say no more

The IRA's time has passed, the time has come for them to allow Sinn Fein become a legitimate political party by disbanding and decommissioning all weapons. At this stage they will have to have an Ant & Dec Live TV Decommissioning Special to appease Big Ian and the boys :rolleyes:

Sponge Bob

10 years of grinding through "Process" and McGuinness and his sitYEE-AYshun is more than enough.

Not only is the IRA irrelevant (save when bashing teenagers in the leg) , so is SF now .

As politics is the art of the possible we have tired of this sitYEE-AYshun crap and the inability of the curly haired muppet to explain how one sitYEE-AYshun dffers from another and leads to another but nothing is done . Too much process for one lifetime for me. 10 years of listening to talk about sitYEE-AYshun after sitYEE-AYshun after sitYEE-AYshun after sitYEE-AYshun after sitYEE-AYshun after sitYEE-AYshun after sitYEE-AYshun after sitYEE-AYshun after sitYEE-AYshun GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There was a big open window there for so long through which any honest politician was welcome to jump but for now lets call in the CAB and the Revenue and see what McGuinness makes of that sitYEE-AYshun.

Gandalf , the plant in the Plod Club near Belfast was the most pathetic republican plot of all time .............ever . Surely a sign of the passing of the sitYEE-AYshun Zeitgeist .

true

Well said Sponge Bob. All we ever hear on RTE is Adams and McGuinness whining about the "sitYEE-AYshun". Such a pathetic crowd of unproductive whingers.

Hobbes

What else should they do? Fact is there has been no actual evidence placed on the table that says the IRA did take the money.

They are probably getting sick of the same questions being asked again and again.

Sponge Bob

I am sick of 10 long years of sitYEE-AYshun and process.

ENUFF

bounty

does mcguinness say situation alot?

Sleepy

AmenToThat wrote:

Id nearly incriminate myself answering back to that right wing bigot McDowell. Let him howl on to his hearts content because more and more of the Irish public are getting fed up of his rantings without producing even a shredd of evidence.

ROFL

So, McDowell is a bigot and Adams and McGuinness are what exactly?

And I think it's safe to say that the only reason we haven't seen prosecutions is because the government are scared to death of what would happen if they were to persue justice and arrest Adams and McGuinness.

Personally I'd love to see it done and the Army let show the RA what a real war looks like but I know I'm very much in the majority of favouring a short brutal war over the procrastination and petty name calling of northern politics.

The Irish public are far more fed up of the kneecappings, criminality and lies of Sinn Fein/IRA than they are of our Minister for Justice who genuinely is caught between a rock and a hard place.

cdebru

bertie says neither he nor mcdowell know who is on the IRA army council



http://www.rte.ie/news/2005/0221/moneylaundering.html


so does that mean mc dowell was lying yesterday

Villain

I told ya McDowell had bitten off more than he could chew, I honestly believe he is trying to bash SF purely for political gain.

Sleepy

And Sinn Fein never bash other parties' policies purely for political gain?

What were all the bin-tax protests about then? Bringing the capital into line with the rest of the country and ensuring an equitable tax situation to pay for waste management seemed like good politics to me (and I'm no big fan of the current Government). I cannot accept that Sinn Fein's actions in this regard were anything more than a cynical attempt to gain votes from the working classes and those too ignorant to realise how a country needs to be run.

If, and it's a very big if, McDowell was in the wrong in claiming that the three boyos are on (or in control of) the Army Council, why hasn't he been sued? I'm guessing it's for the same reason none of the mainstream press have been sued for the claim: because it's true.

Meh

cdebru wrote:

bertie says neither he nor mcdowell know who is on the IRA army council

http://www.rte.ie/news/2005/0221/moneylaundering.html

so does that mean mc dowell was lying yesterday

Mr Ahern said Mr McDowell had access to intelligence briefings, but that hard evidence was another matter.

He added that he did not have the 'professional assessment' of the gardaí on the matter, as he had on the Northern Bank robbery.

So in other words, Garda intelligence has concluded that Adams and McGuinness are on the Army Council, but Ahern and McDowell don't have "personal knowledge" of it i.e. neither of them have seen with their own eyes Adams and McGuinness participating in an Army Council meeting. So there's no contradiction, you just have to pay careful attention to the words both of them are using. Typical Bertie of course, he's leaving his options open

Roisin Dubh

Well maybe it's a good thing if it keeps the IRA from killing Protestants.

Even though they are probably on the Army Council, that body has 7 members so it doesn't mean SF controls it.

Villain

Sleepy wrote:

And Sinn Fein never bash other parties' policies purely for political gain?

What were all the bin-tax protests about then? Bringing the capital into line with the rest of the country and ensuring an equitable tax situation to pay for waste management seemed like good politics to me (and I'm no big fan of the current Government). I cannot accept that Sinn Fein's actions in this regard were anything more than a cynical attempt to gain votes from the working classes and those too ignorant to realise how a country needs to be run.

If, and it's a very big if, McDowell was in the wrong in claiming that the three boyos are on (or in control of) the Army Council, why hasn't he been sued? I'm guessing it's for the same reason none of the mainstream press have been sued for the claim: because it's true.

Ah but making political gain from protest and lying in public are two very different things, and if you read posts here in the past in relation to the libel laws you would see why thy can't sue.

Meh I believe what he said was they don't have "hard evidence", and well without that their speculating.

Stabshauptmann

Cork wrote:

This was not a big surprise.

SF & the IRA were always 2 sides of the same coin.

No Doubt Adams will insist that he was never a member of the IRA.

Let the likes of Adams, Ferris and McGuinness sue.

They won't.

They cant, look up Irish libel law. Ive explained it enough times before.

Meh

irish1 wrote:

Meh I believe what he said was they don't have "hard evidence"

He never used those exact words. Bertie is a slippery customer and you need to listen to what he actually says, not what he wants you to think he's said. In any case, by his own admission, he hasn't asked the Gardai for their "professional assessment", so how would he know?

Necromancer wrote:

They cant, look up Irish libel law. Ive explained it enough times before.

Would you mind explaining how Adams is unable to sue for being called an IRA member, yet "Slab" Murphy is able to sue for the exact same thing?

Sleepy

irish1 wrote:

Ah but making political gain from protest and lying in public are two very different things, and if you read posts here in the past in relation to the libel laws you would see why thy can't sue.

Meh I believe what he said was they don't have "hard evidence", and well without that their speculating.

How you can differentiate protests that were designed to deceive the ignorant from lying, I don't know. However, I think it's a pretty accepted truth that the men in question are on, or control, the army council. It would seem that our state intelligence services (both Gardai and Military) would confirm this. The fact that there's no video footage to prove it in a courtroom (nor the political will to bring about such a prosecution) is neither here nor there.

To me, and the majority of this country it would seem that it is once again Sinn Fein who are lying when Adams et al deny their membership of the council.

Dyr

So MacDowell knows who's on the army council but he doesnt tell bertie, so bertie cant say for sure? that as fine as an example of doublethink as anything the shinners can come up with. :rolleyes:

MacDowell is playing the exact same game that his political daddy OMalley did when he was Minister for Justice, same old same old