Lagan Valley MP, Mr Jeffrey Donaldson, and a Protestant victims' group have claimed that "at least a dozen" members of the gardaí colluded with the IRA in the murders of Protestants in south Armagh during the Troubles.
Mr Donaldson and the group, FAIR - Families Acting for Innocent Relatives - is now seeking a meeting with the Minister for Justice, Mr McDowell, to discuss the allegations.
Mr Donaldson told The Irish Times that FAIR had compiled a dossier of evidence against the gardaí who they allege co-operated with the IRA in a number of killings from the early 1970s to the IRA ceasefire in 1994.
Mr Donaldson said they had evidence against a "dozen" or more named gardaí who in various ways had colluded with the IRA. The allegations were not against the gardaí as a force but against individual officers, he added.
The Lagan Valley MP said he and FAIR members wanted to personally present evidence against the gardaí to Mr McDowell.
The Department of Justice said no request for such a meeting had been received but if it were the Minister would give it due consideration.
FAIR and Mr Donaldson gave a press conference in Bessbrook, Co Armagh yesterday to demand a "full and independent" inquiry into IRA killings in south Armagh, including the Kingsmills massacre of ten Protestants in 1976 and the murders of five Protestants at Tullyvallen Orange Hall in 1975.
Mr Donaldson said the so-called Catholic Reaction Force said it carried out the Kingsmills and Tullyvallen murders but FAIR had evidence that the IRA in south Armagh was responsible and the atrocities were authorised by the IRA army council.
Mr Donaldson said there were over 300 unsolved murders in south Armagh, and that 92 per cent of IRA murders in the area were unsolved.
"That is a stark statistic," he said.
"It is surely a travesty of justice that so many murders remain unsolved." Mr Donaldson said he and FAIR would be pressing the PSNI Chief Constable, Mr Hugh Orde, to provide the necessary resources, including senior officers, to investigate the unsolved crimes.
"Modern investigation gathering, including DNA testing, could result in successful prosecutions," he said. Mr William Frazer of FAIR, five of whose family were killed by the IRA in south Armagh, said the same IRA gang in south Armagh was responsible for about 100 murders, particularly during the 1970s and 1980s.
"In our call for a full inquiry we are demanding an explanation for the lack of prosecutions in south Armagh," he said.
"Coupled with that is the lack of a security response, both in providing reasonable protection for law-abiding citizens and in pursuit of justice."
Mr Frazer said Protestant victims in south Armagh had received "pitiful" compensation.
"While only £200,000 was paid out in compensation to families in relation to 50 particular murders in the area this contrasted with "one nationalist family receiving £500,000", he added.
