And in the Guardian…
The ex-minister said that not only was the Fianna Fáil led administration – which lasted until 2011 – unaware of the letters, ministers in Dublin had rejected a similar proposal from republicans: “While Sinn Féin brought up the issue of the ‘on the runs’ regularly with us, we never had any information about the existence of these letters and I think that is the case for all of the cabinet back then.
“Clearly they went and got a deal on the ‘on the runs’ from the British but we had no idea about it and the British never told us at the time about these letters”.
Irish government officials working in peace process negotiations at the time have also told the Guardian that they were unaware about the existence of the letters, which have prompted a political crisis in Northern Ireland – including a threat of resignation from the Democratic Unionist first minister, Peter Robinson.
Update:
@brehonisbest there u go 🙂 pic.twitter.com/LTT2ouyMbZ
— Rebecca Black (@RBlackBT) February 28, 2014
Mick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the wider media and is a regular guest and speaking events across Ireland, the UK and Europe. Twitter: @MickFealty
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