THE VICTIMS’ group representing the sole survivor and relatives of 10 Protestants shot dead in an IRA attack in 1976 has expressed disappointment that the Taoiseach declined to apologise for government failure to deal with paramilitaries in the 1970s.
Enda Kenny, who yesterday met the relatives and only survivor of the “Kingsmill massacre”, Alan Black, said their concerns were just as important as those of all other victims and their families.
“I assured them that there is no hierarchy of victims, and that their concerns are every bit as important to me as the concerns of other victims and their families,” he said.
The families called for a public apology by the Irish Government. Willie Frazer of Families Acting for Innocent Relatives (Fair) said they were not asking Mr Kenny to apologise for the IRA, but for government inability “in dealing with the IRA”.
Speaking after the meeting at Government Buildings, the first with a serving taoiseach, Mr Frazer said, however, that they were grateful for the meeting which lasted more than an hour.
The group also asked that the investigation into the attack “does not stop at the Border” and called for the establishment of a historical inquiries team in Dundalk.
Last year an inquiries team reported that the Provisional IRA carried out the “purely sectarian” and “calculated slaughter” of the 10 men 36 years ago. The Protestant textile workers were murdered after the bus bringing them home from work was waved down at Kingsmill. After getting off the bus they were lined up by at least 11 gunmen. The one Catholic among them was identified and told to run away. The IRA gang then gunned them down. The attack was claimed as a retaliation for the murder of six Catholics the previous night.
Mr Black, who survived despite 18 bullet wounds, gave an account of the attack at the meeting.
Mr Kenny described the atrocity as one of the worst of the Troubles and told the families “the IRA was the common enemy of all of the people of Ireland . . . and that their campaign . . . was strongly resisted by successive Irish governments.
“I promised the families that I would reflect carefully on what they told me this afternoon.”
Beatrice Worton, mother of victim Colin Worton, said she did not blame the Taoiseach: “It was the ones before him that should have done something.” – (Additional reporting PA)
