Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Taoiseach for his reply. I put it to the Taoiseach that Deputy Adams often asks the Taoiseach to meet him and others who are victims of other atrocities. I have no difficulty with that. It is equally legitimate to seek a meeting when it comes to the only prison officer murdered in this State defending the State. Portlaoise Prison was a difficult assignment for any prison officer at that time. In fact, following his murder there was an outbreak or attempted escape from Portlaoise Prison a year or so later in 1985.

The point I am making is that this was an atrocity. It was denied for 30 years by Sinn Féin and the IRA. In 2013, eventually, those involved owned up and said to Austin Stack that they murdered his father. They did not do it in the way they should have done it, without any context or anything like that. There is no excuse for what they did. It was quite cold-blooded. The question is how Deputy Adams came into the possession of those names and how he could be confident or competent to send or pass those names to the Garda Commissioner as suspects in the case. What is Sinn Féin going to do about it?

Given that this involves a defender of the State, a person who worked on behalf of the State, I think it merits such a meeting. On the Remembrance Commission issue, I believe the Stack family are due acknowledgement of the loss of their husband and father. They are also due consideration by the Remembrance Commission, which could be opened up on a case-by-case basis. It was not possible to deal with this before now because it was only in 2013 that the murder was owned up to.

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