The Irish government was not consulted about the appointment of top Conservative Chris Patten to head the Northern Ireland policing commission, and Irish nominations for the commission were rejected, the State papers reveal
Illustrating the considerable anger displayed in Dublin, a briefing note prepared for then taoiseach Bertie Ahern in June 1998 complained of “strong dissatisfaction with the handling” of the matter by the British government.
The Irish government learned of Patten’s selection from a report in The Telegraph, leading Department of Foreign Affairs secretary general Dermot Gallagher to ask the Northern Ireland Office (NIO) about when it had intended to tell Dublin.
On June 3rd, 1998, Gallagher told secretary of state for Northern Ireland Dr Mo Mowlam “forcefully” that the commission had “one glaring weakness”, in that it lacked a nationalist with “street credibility”.
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The “policing side” and unionists were “satisfactorily” represented, he said, but Dublin’s efforts to have Derry-born academic Angela Hegarty appointed were rejected by NIO civil servants, the files reveal.
[ From the archive: News report on commission was untrue - PattenOpens in new window ]
Mowlam said she had put Hegarty’s name to her officials “but they adamantly turned her down”, Gallagher records, adding: “I (politely) suggested that as the issue was compellingly political, it needed to be revisited at that level.”
Certain ‘State papers’ or official archives are declassified at the end of every year. This week, thousands of documents in archives in Dublin, Belfast and London are being made public for the first time, bringing new insights into events of times past. This year’s Dublin archives mostly date from 1994.
The attempt later by the British side to present Dr Maurice Hayes, a leading Catholic civil servant in Northern Ireland throughout The Troubles, as a nationalist representative infuriated Hayes.
He told Gallagher he had been “very upset” and had “been tempted” to tell Mowlam that the commission could have its “first resignation”. Gallagher said: “I urged him to forget about any such thoughts.”
“He did not see himself as a representative of the nationalist community, or in any way ‘balancing Peter Smith’ (a leading Ulster Unionist of the day and one then close to the party leader, David Trimble).
“He was also irate about Peter Smith and himself being lumped together in the one sentence. He said in no uncertain terms to the secretary of state that he could ‘at least be given his own sentence’.
Backing the nomination of South African expert Zelda Hoffman and Hegarty, the Irish government said both had wide knowledge and would “help to bring a more effective balance to the commission”.
Gallagher “pressed the suggestion”, in his own words, that London consider replacing former Boston police commissioner Dr Kathleen O’Toole withHoffman, and create one extra commission place.
The extra place could be filled by the then head of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in the United States, Prof Greg Lynch. The Lynch nomination was then accepted by the NIO.
Foreign Affairs official Eamon McKee reported that O’Toole was “highly regarded” in policing, especially by the then RUC chief constable, Ronnie Flanagan, and was “involved in RUC/Boston police co-operation”.
But observers could not identify what she offered bar sympathy to police, he said, adding that “innumerable” others had far better qualifications: “On balance [she] would be seen as an ally of police interests and concerns,” he wrote.
[ From the archive: Patten takes on the RUC reform that has been ducked for decadesOpens in new window ]
O’Toole’s nomination and that of Lynch were supported by the Clinton White House and by influential Massachusetts senator Ted Kennedy, who spoke directly with the secretary of state.
The Boston Globe on June 1st, 1998 reported O’Toole’s selection, with reporter Kevin Cullen noting that her Catholic Irish-American background would soothe nationalists, while her work with the RUC “may comfort Protestants”.
On June 1st, NIO official John Steele told Gallagher that the NIO was “at pains to assure that our nominations were seriously and sympathetically considered, that the choices made were on merit”.
The Irish complaints were still being circulated days after the commission was announced: “Not the way to do business. Credibility of the commissions already damaged as a result. We need to ensure that this is not repeated,” read one note.
The policing commission should have had had powers to demand sight of the reports carried out by John Stalker into “shoot to kills” in the 1980s and John Stevens’s inquiry into police collusion with loyalist killers in the 1990s, another note stated.
The issue led Ireland’s ambassador to Washingon, Sean O’Huiginn, to meet Lynch and O’Toole afterwards especially to explain to O’Toole that Dublin had been trying to ensure a proper balance on the commission, not trying to oppose her.
“The dogged refusal [of the British] to do so, or to take us on board in any real way in the preparatory process and the pre-emptive leaks all naturally fuelled suspicions of ulterior purposes,” the ambassador told them.
