Early dats in the Cosgrave Coalition

Three chapters of ROUND up THE USUAL SUSPECTS by Derek Dunne and Gene Kerrigan, published today by MAGILL, outline the political background to the Nicky Kelly case. The section printed below is taken from the second of these: 'A State Of Siege',
The National Coalition was on top of security from the start. Liam Cosgrave's Fine Gael would never be soft on wrongdoers. Labour would provide the balance needed to preserve civil liberties. The government of all the talents, they were called. .

What about the repressive legislation that Paddy Cooney had called "repugnant to the basic principles of justice and liberty", just four months earlier? Now, as the new Minister for Justice, Cooney said that "as long as democracy was threatened in any way it had to have the means to protect itself, even if the laws necessary were repugnant."

The Cabinet posts were divided ten-five between Fine Gael and labour. It was to be an odd Cabinet, the lines of division based more on personality conflicts than on party or ideology. There were no serious clashes, everyone got on with running their Departments and there was no poliitical disagreement. There was likewise no political agreeement. The ministers worked more as administrative heads of their Departments rather than as politicians collectively making policy. Paradoxically, Cabinet meetings were often and lengthy. Cosgrave believed in talking things out, letting all have their say, putting off taking a vote. Some ministers found the process so frustrating that they sometimes connducted Departmental business in siderooms during Cabinet meetings. At the time, Frank Hall's satirical TV show porrtrayed Cosgrave as a Hitler figure, barking out orders. At the end of one long gabby Cabinet meeting one minister turned to another and asked wouldn't it be grand if they had that fella from Hall's show as Taoiseach, at least they'd get a decision.

The Cabinet was entirely divorced from decision-making on security. They didn't decide policy, monitor events or make decisions on practical matters. They got reports, but there was little detail and less interest. Such reports were almost always concerned with the party political embarrasssments resulting from successful subversive action.

Within the Cabinet there was a sub-committee on security. The three Fine Gael places on it were filled automatiically. Cosgrave, as Taoiseach got one, Paddy Donegan was appointed Minister for Defence and took to it like a kid who has been given a very large box of toy soldiers. He automatically got the second place on the sub-committee. The third place went to the Minister for Justice, Paddy Cooney.

Labour had two places on the sub-committee. One went automatically to Brendan Corish, as Tanaiste. Corish, howwever, wasn't too interested. He spent a lot of time in his constituency and delegated his position on the submittee to Jimmy Tully, Minister for Local Government. There was one Labour place left. They had to fill it because this was a coalition, and because, went the theory, Fine Gael shouldn't have too tight a hold on security matters. Neither Michael O'Leary nor Justin Keating expressed any interest. Conor Cruise O'Brien, still interested primarily in the Northern conflict, took the fifth place on the subbcommittee.

In the event, the sub-committee didn't have to press its views on the Cabinet. During the entire four years of the Coalition's reign the Cabinet would vote just twice on security matters of any moment. In effect, whether through inexperience or lack of interest, the Cabinet abdicated its responsibilities on security (and civil rights) in favour of the sub-committee.

Some Cabinet members didn't know or weren't too sure who was actually on the sub-committee, where it met, how often it met or just what it did.

In the beginning it didn't matter. There was great crack on the security front. Paddy Donegan had been Minister for Defence for a fortnight when the Provos tried to bring in a consignment of guns on a ship called the Claudia, The gardai were tipped off and Donegan rushed to the scene, stayed up all night and "personally directed" the swoop on the ship. There were several arrests and the guns were confiscated and the Claudia was allowed go free. Journaalists reached for the dictionaries to find out what a transom was when Donegan announced that he had delivered "a kick up the transom".

In May Liam Cosgrave told a triumphant Fine Gael Ard Fheis that his priorities were law and order, an incomes policy and a housing programme. He got the usual standing ovation.

The security successes went on. Five Provos, including Joe Cahill, went to jail for their part in the Claudia affair. Paddy Donegan announced the formation of two new batttalions of the army for border duty. Thirty Provos were arrested when disturbances followed the annual Bodensstown commemoration. A raid on a ship in Dublin port netted 17 rifles and 29,000 rounds of ammunition bound for the Provos. In July gardai foiled an attempted escape from Mountjoy. things were still unsettled, but the Coaliition was getting on top of the security problems.

There was a bonus in that Fianna Fail were finding it hard to settle in to opposition after 16 years in power. Deputy Liam Ahern told the Dail that what was needed was "more guns, bags of guns", to Jack Lynch's embarrrassment. That embarrassment deepened when it was revealed that .as Taoiseach Lynch had been told - but had forgotten - about the activities of Kenneth and Keith Littlejohn, two thieves recruited as British agents and sent over to infiltrate the IRA .. The Lirtlejohns Iaimed to have robbed banks and set off explosions in the South in order to push the government towards more repressive measures against republicans.

And there was real hope that there could be a solution to the [orthern conflict. In October 1972 the British government had issued a Green Paper outlining proposals for new political structures in the North. Three weeks after the coalition won the election a British White Paper had been issued developing the ideas.

The coalition had made a successful start and was feelling pleased with itself. On October 8 there was another small victory when Provo leader Seamus Twomey was sent to Mountjoy to start a three year sentence. Just over three weeks later that little victory would lash back into the government's face.

Leonard had an American accent. He wanted to take some aerial photographs of ancient monuments around Stradbally, County Laois. He went along to the Westpoint hanger at Dublin Airport, following a phone call, to have a look at the kind of aircraft he could hire from Irish Heliicopters. He thought the Alouette helicopter should do fine for his purposes and £80 an hour sounded about right. He booked the helicopter for Wednesday week.

On Wednesday October 31 1973 the National Coalition had been in government for eight months.

Leonard arrived at Dublin airport at noon and set off on his flight, with Irish Helicopters pilot Thompson Boyes at the controls. They flew down to Laois and at about 2.30pm Leonard said he'd like to land in that field over there. They landed. Two armed men came out of the trees.

An hour later Thompson Boyes was flying at gunpoint, approaching Mountjoy prison. He used the Royal Canal and the nearby railway line as landmarks. It was 3.39pm when the helicopter landed in the exercise yard of D Wing in Mountjoy. Some of the warders thought it was the new Minister for Justice, Paddy Cooney, come to pay a surprise visit.

At 3.41pm the helicopter took off again. It had three Provo leaders, Seamus Twomey, Kevin Mallon and J.B. O'Hagan aboard. When the prison warders realised what was happening they tried to stop the escape but other prisoners in the yard prevented them. There were six uniformed gardai in the prison and one plainclothes garda with a gun. That garda was near the front gate. The gates were open as a truck was about to enter the prison. The prison alarm bells went off. A warder yelled for someone to close the gates.

The helicopter, overloaded, made it up and over the walls of the prison with just twenty feet to spare. Three Provo leaders, the pilot and Leonard with the American accent.

The helicopter escape gave the Provos a needed boost to their morale. It severely embarrassed the Coalition. Paddy Cooney had been away in Turkey, celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the Turkish state. Des O'Malley called for his resignation. Cooney shrugged off criticism. He couldn't forsee everything. But the escape shook the government. Cosgrave announced that there would be a judicial inquiry. The idea was forming that the state should forsee everything.

On June 3 Michael Gaughan, a republican who had been on hunger strike since March 31, died. At Gaughan's funeral service in Kilburn Rev Michael Connolly described him as a great man. The priest was suspended from his parish duties. There was a military-style parade down the Kilburn High Road.

As Gaughan's body was taken from Dublin to Ballina thousands of people lined the roadsides in tribute. The Cosgrave government was angered at the open display of support for the Provisionals. They determined that it would not be allowed happen again.

At the end of that month the authorities found an 800 foot tunnel in Portlaoise prison. The number of gardai in the prison was increased and army foot patrols were set ~ outside the walls. Wire contraptions were erected to zasure that no helicopters could suddenly drop in.

On August 18, shortly after noon, nineteen Provos in Cell Block E overpowered warders and got out onto a roof. Tiley had gelignite and used it blow their way through two gates. All nineteen escaped.

The image of confidence cracked. The embarrassment of me helicopter escape was compounded. Paddy Cooney announced a judicial inquiry headed by Justice Finlay.

In fact, this inquiry had been under way since the heliicopter escape the previous October. Although the impresssion was given that the Finlay inquiry was a routine affair in which the security failures which allowed the escapes would be identified and rectified the inquiry went very far beyond that. The Finlay report was never published, but it radically restructured the whole security network - gardai, army, intelligence, prevention, detection.

The Finlay Report, delivered to the Taoiseach in 1974, carne in several sections. It examined and made recommenndations on prisons, RTE, ESB, the airports, the courts, water and gas installations, railways, embassies and diploomats, communications, and just about every institution or service which might be under threat from subversives. It was divided into sections and each section was given only to those affected by its recommendations ~ for instance, the section covering the ESB was seen only by those innvolved in ESB security, and that was the only section of the report they saw.

The most important innovation was the setting up of the National Security Group. This was a body chaired by the secretary to the Taoiseach. It had representatives from the Departments of Justice and Defence, the Garda Commmissioner, the army Chief of Staff, and a senior garda officer with direct responsibility for state security. Repreesentatives from any government Department could be called to attend meetings of the group when their area was being discussed. The group met at least once a month in Room 6B of government buildings and constantly assessed security developments and made recommendations. It reported, through the Taoiseach's secretary, directly to Liam Cosgrave.

Cosgrave therefore, by late 1974, had direct lines of communication to all aspects of state security. He also had the Cabinet sub-committee on security, which was so homogenous in its views that its only function was to enndorse the measures which Cosgrave - separately from the sub-committee - decided in conjunction with Paddy Cooney and Paddy Donegan. The direction and control of the forces of state security had been gathered in very few hands and those hands belonged to people of like views. The Cabinet, which in theory had responsibility for secuurity and to which the various instruments of security were in theory accountable, was otherwise engaged. Its members were content to let Cosgrave and his circle get on with it.

There would later arise a myth that the National Coaliition launched a concerted attack on civil liberties. It wasn't true. So far from the minds of Cabinet ministers were civil liberties that it never occurred to them to attack them. Much less defend them.

In between the helicopter escape and the Portlaoise breakkout Coalition hopes for progress to stability in the North were dashed. The British discussion documents had led to a four-day conference at Sunningdale in December 1973. The idea was for Protestants and Catholics to share power in an Executive and that there would be an "Irish dimennsion", a Council of Ireland. No one was sure what this last was. It was sold to nationalists as a first step to a united Ireland and to unionists as a structure which would stymie moves to a united Ireland.

Cosgrave did his best. Even before he formed his Cabinet, in March 1973, he flew to London with Brendan Corish to discuss the situation with Edward Heath. Garret FitzzGerald met William Whitelaw for talks in London in June. Cosgrave again went to London to see Heath in July. On September 17 there was a massive military exercise which sealed off Baldonnel airfield while Cosgrave and Heath engaged in nine hours of talks. Then there were the four days of Sunningdale in December, to which Cosgrave committed the best part of his Cabinet. Cosgrave consulted by phone with Brian Faulkner, the Northern premier, on the Council of Ireland proposal and then met Faulkner for five hours at Baldonnel on January 16. After the British general election in February Garret FitzGerald went to London for talks with the new Northern secretary, Merlyn Rees, Senior Garda and RUC officers met to discuss secuurity arrangements. It was all go, and all for nothing.

The general election results in February 1974 showed which way the wind was blowing in the North. Eleven of the twelve Northern seats at Westminster were won by antiipower sharing unionists. The unionists didn't want power sharing, they wanted their state back. They launched a general strike, closed the power stations, patrolled the streets carrying cudgels, and bombed Dublin and Monaghan, killing 31 people. The power sharing Executive collapsed in May, after a tentative start. It was the first genuine attempt to square the circle in the North, and it would be the last for a decade.

From that point on the Cosgrave Coalition had no Northern policy. Only O'Brien had a policy based on an ideological positon. For Cosgrave and his circle the job was now merely one of tightening security. There was no underlying political strategy, as there had been with Sunnningdale, just a decision to stamp out the IRA in the South and push the problem back across the border.

For Liam Cosgrave, enough was enough. When the Executive collapsed he turned to Conor Cruise O'Brien and said, "The Protestants have won - isn't that it?" That was it. •