Statement by TUV leader Jim Allister:
“McGuinness’s comments on the IRA campaign in Oxford will have been grossly offensive to countless victims across Northern Ireland and indeed the whole of the UK.
“To claim that civilians murdered by the IRA were mistakes in operations which went wrong is grotesque nonsense. How was the death of Mary Travers, shot in the back as she made her way home from Mass, a mistake? How were the deaths of nine innocent people in the Shankill bombing anything other than deliberate – particularly when one remembers it had an eleven second fuse?
“What of the Birmingham pub bombings which killed twenty one people? Or Kingsmills where the IRA shot ten people simply because they were Protestants?
“Or Enniskillen?
“Or La Mon?
“Or Jean McConville?
“One could go on with an almost endless list of examples of IRA atrocities where civilians were deliberately murdered by McGuinness’s IRA.
“These galling comments are all the worse when one remembers that McGuinness by virtue of his position as co-First Minister is responsible for promoting victims’ interests!”
