Debate contribution: Operation Kenova Interim Report

Debate contribution by Ms Joanne Bunting on 11 March 2024.

MLA

Ms Joanne Bunting

Party at the time

Democratic Unionist Party

Date

11 March 2024

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Matter of the Day

Heading

Operation Kenova Interim Report

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4269383

Read the official Assembly record

Text

Eight years, £40 million, 50,000 pages of evidence on 101 murders and abductions by the Provisional IRA (PIRA), 35 files to the Public Prosecution Service (PPS) and zero prosecutions: that is the state of play in the Operation Kenova interim report. It makes recommendations in respect of a range of criminal justice agencies, including the PPS and the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland (PONI), which will have implications for public confidence. Above all, it outlines the role of agents, the legitimate need for them, the importance of their work, the requirement for a degree of secrecy and, importantly, the extreme context in which they were operating at that time. To quote the report:

"From a relatively peaceful country at the end of the 1960s, violence escalated rapidly to 472 people being killed in 1972. No police force in the world could have dealt with this level of murder."

"In 1983, Interpol data showed that Northern Ireland was the most dangerous place in the world to be a police officer".

Mr Boutcher is frank, and there are some uncomfortable words for our state. However, the report lays bare the workings of PIRA, highlights the hypocrisy of its leaders and makes clear that some of the behaviours continue into the present day. I will let the report speak for itself. Members of PIRA's internal security unit (ISU):

"were responsible for torture, inhumane and degrading treatment and murder, including of children, vulnerable adults, those with learning difficulties and many who were entirely innocent of the claims made against them. A core part of the activities of the ISU included physical beatings with iron bars and hammers and the shooting of victims in their legs, elbows, knees or feet".

"We also have evidence that PIRA took violent and punitive action against women and children in their family homes while detaining and torturing loved ones suspected of being agents."

"The ISU made some false promises that, should they confess to assisting the security forces, it would stop mistreating them."

Typically, PIRA did not usually live up to its undertakings and executed many of those who, in a vain attempt to stay alive, made admissions. The interim report states:

"Some of the PIRA senior leadership who commissioned the ISU would later be active in seeking fairness and human rights protections. There is a stark contrast between their public position and the wanton use of torture and murder against people from their community who were often innocent of the accusations made against them."

We must keep a sense of perspective. Republican terrorists were responsible for 60% of the overall Troubles killings, loyalists for 30% and the security forces for 10%, not that the inquiries would convey that. The interim report is unequivocal:

"PIRA's actions were the most shameful and evil I have encountered."

It is clear:

"The republican leadership should acknowledge and accept these crimes were wrong and apologise to the victims and the families of those tortured and murdered."

My final paragraph —.

Thank you.

499 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not qualifying

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 09:46 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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