Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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I welcome the Minister, Deputy Flanagan, to the Dáil Chamber. On 21 February 1988, 30 years ago today, Aidan McAnespie, a young nationalist and Gaelic football player, was shot dead as he made his way to his local Gaelic football club grounds at Aghaloo, Aughnacloy, County Tyrone. He had just passed through the British army checkpoint on foot when a single bullet, fired by a British soldier in the watchtower structure above and behind him, robbed him of his young life and robbed his family of a dearly loved son and brother. The McAnespie family grieve to this day.

This was no accidental discharge, a view since expressed on behalf of even the PSNI. Aidan McAnespie was told repeatedly as he passed through that checkpoint, going to and from his work in Monaghan, that he would be shot. He feared for his life and, as time would confirm, with good reason.

At the time of Aidan's murder I was a Sinn Féin councillor for north Monaghan. During the previous year, 1987, Aidan McAnespie came to our party office in Monaghan and recounted to me the details of the threats to which he was being subjected. I sought to assist him but the avenues open to me were limited due to section 31 censorship and the refusal of Government Ministers, the predecessors of the current Minister, to meet or engage with Sinn Féin elected representatives. I sought and secured a meeting with Cardinal Tomás Ó Fiaich at his residence in Armagh and he took up Aidan's case and lobbied extensively on his behalf. The cardinal later officiated at Aidan's funeral mass and once again affirmed his personal belief in, and solidarity with, this young innocent member of the wider nationalist and Catholic community north of the Border. Today, only the most bigoted of anti-nationalists and anti-Catholics would deny the truth of Aidan McAnespie's murder.

I and countless others have lobbied throughout the intervening years for the Government to release the Crowley report into the murder of Aidan McAnespie, principally to the McAnespie family. The Crowley investigation was established by the Government here in Dublin. Deputy Garda Commissioner Eugene Crowley anchored the process and, over a period of time, met with witnesses to Aidan's death and others who had relevant information regarding Aidan's experiences at the Aughnacloy British army checkpoint.

I was one of those who presented before the deputy commissioner at that time. While I have no personal recall of any reference to anonymity or confidentiality when I attended the Crowley investigation, I can accept that it could have come up in the case of other witnesses. Those were very different times. They were clearly dark and dangerous times and, following the murder of Aidan McAnespie, a whole community that straddled the Border was deeply affected. Some, especially those who travelled through the Aughnacloy checkpoint daily or regularly, were fearful for their safety.

I suggest that, 30 years later, we are in a very different time and place, that those fears no longer exist and that there is certainly no justification for them. Accordingly, I ask the Minister to proactively establish the number of witnesses who presented to the deputy commissioner or who forwarded written evidence, and if he will establish the number to whom some form of a confidentiality understanding applied. I ask him to undertake to contact each of them to establish if, 30 years later and in very different times, they are now willing to allow the release of their evidence as part of the overall Crowley report and to allow it to be given to the McAnespie family in line with its wishes.

Charles Flanagan (Laois, Fine Gael)
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I thank Deputy Ó Caoláin for raising this matter on this poignant day, the 30th anniversary of the killing of Aidan McAnespie. Deputy Ó Caoláin recalls being a Sinn Féin councillor at the time. I was a Member of this House on that day and what happened was a devastating tragedy for Aidan McAnespie, his family and the entire community in Aughnacloy and beyond, even into Deputy Ó Caoláin's own county of Monaghan. His death was needless and I am very conscious of the continued suffering of his family.

Given the widespread public disquiet at the death of Aidan McAnespie, the Government requested that an inquiry be carried out into the shooting and surrounding circumstances. The then Deputy Garda Commissioner, Eugene Crowley, was appointed to conduct this inquiry. However, because of fears that many people in the local community expressed to him as to their safety and security, they co-operated only and explicitly on the basis of an assurance of absolute confidentiality and that what they related to Deputy Commissioner Crowley was for the Government only.

This report was submitted to the Minister for Justice in April 1988. To seek to release the full content of the Crowley report, even at this stage 30 years later, would be a breach of trust of the Irish Government to those parties. In 2002, the Government approved an outline summary of the Crowley report’s conclusions and it was provided to the McAnespie family. At that time, detailed consideration was given to producing an edited or redacted version of the report that would be meaningful, would not compromise confidentiality and could be provided to the family. However, given the nature of the report, it did not prove possible to do so. I have recently arranged for further copies of the limited summary and the post mortem examination report prepared by Professor John Harbison to be provided to the McAnespie family through their legal representatives.

Deputies will appreciate that the Government must have full regard to the expectations of the many people who contributed in good faith to the Crowley inquiry on the basis of a specific guarantee of absolute confidentiality and to the persisting obligation in that regard. Regrettably, under these circumstances it is not considered possible to publish or further disseminate the report in its entirety. It is a source of regret to me that this will inevitably be a disappointment to Aidan McAnespie’s family, who suffer from his tragic loss to this very day. However, the Irish Government is fully committed to the consensus that has been achieved in the 2014 Stormont House Agreement on the framework of institutions to assist families access information about the deaths of their loved ones as a result of the conflict in Northern Ireland. The full implementation of that agreement has been hampered by the lack of a resolution on re-establishing the Executive in Northern Ireland. I have listened to what Deputy Ó Caoláin said regarding the witnesses and I will reflect on what options might be viable to further assist the McAnespie family.

Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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I thank the Minister for his reply but, like the McAnespie family, I am disappointed. I extend my solidarity to John McAnespie and to his family on this very poignant day for all of them. John is the father of Aidan. He is now in his mid-80s and he has lost his wife and a very precious daughter in the years since Aidan's murder.

I will focus only on what I have already said to the Minister on the witnesses who came before the former Deputy Garda Commissioner Eugene Crowley. As I have already indicated, I was one of those witnesses. I was familiar with the story of Aidan McAnespie up to the time of his death - the continual harassment, the threats he was subjected to and the real fear he had which he recounted to me and to many others. I do not recall Deputy Garda Commissioner Eugene Crowley extending the offer of confidentiality or any other form of words in the context of confidentiality in my case, nor would I have sought this. Will the Minister please heed the appeal in my earlier contribution and establish the number of witnesses that actually presented? Will the Minister establish the number of those for whom that confidentiality arrangement applied? I suggest it is a smaller number than many might expect. I do not, however, take away from the fact that it was important for those to whom it did apply. I do not take this away at all because I realised then and understood, and I still do, the real fear that was within my community at the time, especially in relation to that checkpoint and its regular use by some. In all sincerity I say to the Minister that it is worth undertaking a proactive engagement with the list of those to whom that arrangement applied. I warrant that in these very changed times of 30 years later that the greater number, if not all of those, would withdraw their understanding and allow for the report to be published and presented to the family, helping bring about closure for the McAnespie family and their terrible, tragic story.

Charles Flanagan (Laois, Fine Gael)
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On this, the 30th anniversary of the tragedy, I offer my condolences and those of my Government colleagues to the McAnespie family and in particular to Aidan McAnespie's elderly father. It was a tragedy for his family and for the wider community. Dealing with the legacy of the Troubles on this island is a difficult and complex task without any immediate or easy solutions. The Deputy will recall that the Government, the British Government and the parties in Northern Ireland worked together over an extended period in 2014 to establish the Stormont House Agreement. I was personally involved in that process as the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade at the time. Among other elements that agreement sets out a series of measures to put in place a structured framework to deal with Troubles related deaths, where there are unresolved issues, and to seek to provide more information to victims and to victims' families where that is possible.

I assure the House that the Government remains fully committed to playing its part in implementing those measures and that work is ongoing to seek to achieve that. The re-establishment of the institutional framework provided for under the Good Friday Agreement remains central to these efforts. I hope that once the measures provided for in the Stormont House Agreement have been put in place that these will provide an opportunity for the families of the many persons killed during the Troubles to seek to access further information about those deaths where they wish to do so.

I have listened to Deputy Ó Caoláin and I would be happy to engage further to see how we can advance the process but having regard to the strict obligation that I have around the undertakings that were given on the occasion of the inquiry, which has been referred to by Deputy Ó Caoláin.

Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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It is appropriate for all Members in the House to echo the Minister's and Deputy Ó Caoláin's expressions of sympathy to the entire McAnespie family on the heinous murder 30 years ago of Aidan.