Peter Fitzpatrick (Louth, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Garda Commissioner and his team. On 19 July 1991, Tom Oliver, a 43 year old man from Riverstown, County Louth, a husband and father of seven children and a sheep farmer with no connection to paramilitary or security forces, was abducted, tortured and brutally murdered by members of the Provisional IRA. His body was found across the Border in Belleek, County Armagh. He had been shot in the head. The local priest who attended the post mortem remarked that it appeared as though a concrete block had been dropped on every part of his body. His family want justice and they want to know who killed him.

In October 2012, the Commissioner gave evidence to the Smithwick tribunal in closed session. Following consultation, Judge Peter Smithwick published that evidence. The Commissioner had told the tribunal that regarding the intelligence files compiled by the PSNI, the RUC and M15 - the British security services - on the murder of Tom Oliver, one file was nothing short of sensational. File No. 9 stated that intelligence indicated that a senior Provisional IRA council member was directly involved in ordering the murder of Tom Oliver; that that senior Provisional IRA council member had been approached by several Provisional IRA members and others requesting that Tom Oliver not be killed; and that, despite these requests, the senior Provisional IRA council member directed that Tom Oliver be executed. When Mr. Harris was asked if he knew the identity of the Provisional IRA council member and, if so, whether he would he pass on that information to An Garda Síochána, he responded, "Yes".