Report on Operation Kenova: Statements
Dail Éireann — 2026-02-11
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Jim O'Callaghan (FF), Dublin Bay South

As the Taoiseach said, the Kenova Report is a difficult read but it is an absolutely essential one for all of us in this House. Everyone must face up to the wrongs of the past honestly and squarely if we are to achieve lasting peace and reconciliation on this island. The survivors and the families of the victims of the atrocities detailed in this report, and society as a whole, deserve no less. We should not seek to excuse or minimise the harm and suffering caused, no matter by whom. We must continue to seek answers and engage with difficult truths such as those found by the Kenova team.
The Government is committed to playing its part in addressing the legacy of the Troubles across these islands and has taken, and will continue to take, concrete actions to make this a reality. I will return to those actions later.
This report is a hugely important contribution to the search for answers and accountability. It represents the culmination of ten years of painstaking, rigorous work and I echo the Taoiseach's words of appreciation for the leadership provided by Jon Boutcher and Sir lain Livingstone and the dedication of the entire team behind the report. The work undertaken by Kenova across its four workstreams - Kenova, Denton, Turma and Mizzenmast - was wide-ranging and each is of significant public importance. I take this opportunity to express my condolences to all those who were injured or lost family members in the litany of incidents examined in the report. It is the sad reality of the history of the conflict, however, that the question of collusion, which has been so damaging to the pursuit of consensus on the legacy of the Troubles, is at the heart of two of these: Kenova and Denton. As the Taoiseach has rightly said, it is the corrosive effect of all collusion, both known and suspected, that undermines the confidence of families in legacy processes and our collective ability to move on from the conflict.
In relation to Stakeknife, the allegations about this figure in the Provisional IRA and his links to British intelligence have been notorious for many years. Kenova has exposed the nature and extent of the collusion that took place in relation to Freddie Scappaticci. Kenova expressed caution about the careless use of the term “collusion”, but there can be no doubt that collusion took place in relation to Stakeknife. It was a perverse form of collusion in which the interests of British intelligence and their efforts to protect their informant at the heart of the Provisional IRA coalesced with the Provisional IRA's own murderous and illegitimate actions to judge and savagely punish those it deemed a threat to its aims.
On the part of the British security and intelligence services, there were repeated failures to protect the victims of the Provisional IRA from harm and to bring those responsible to justice. Consequent on this were 27 cases in which Stakeknife was personally connected to the commission of serious criminal offences, including murder, attempted murder and unlawful imprisonment.
Informants are vital to policing and security the world over, to the prevention and detection of crime and to safeguarding democratic governments from those who would seek to undermine them by terrorist acts or other threats. What is catalogued in Kenova goes far beyond the rules with which informants and their handlers must abide. Being an informant is not a licence to commit unlawful acts of the most serious kind or to act with impunity. I want to put this on the record to reassure the House.
Stakeknife's personal role in the violence carried out by the Provisional IRA is shocking and grotesque but it should not obscure the wider reality that Kenova's casework covered a total of 101 murders and abductions by that organisation. Kenova has rightly framed the Provisional IRA's role in this savage violence against innocent people as grave violations of human rights intended to intimidate and subjugate the community. It is a fundamental principle of human rights that they are universal and transcend political affiliation. There was never any justification for these violations of human rights to occur, even in the course of a bitter sectarian conflict.
In relation to Operation Denton, the summary report has underlined what was already either suspected or known in relation to many of the cases under review: that collusion between the UVF and the British security forces was taking place. While Denton concluded that there was no single, easily defined group operating from the Glenanne farm, as has been extensively alleged, it is no less shocking that Denton found evidence that there was a wider, more diffuse network of loyalist paramilitaries and members of the security forces that acted together to carry out vicious sectarian attacks across this island.
Ten of those incidents occurred in this jurisdiction, including the Dublin and Monaghan bombings. While Denton found that the prospect of any successful prosecution in relation to the Dublin and Monaghan bombings was extremely unlikely from a UK perspective, I would emphasise, as I have done repeatedly, that the Garda investigations remain open and An Garda Síochána is fully committed to actively pursuing any new evidence that comes to light. That remains the case for all unresolved Troubles-related cases.
I want to take this opportunity to refer to another incident, not so well known and publicly remembered, that was also examined as part of Denton. That is the Dublin Airport bombing on 29 November 1975, in which John Hayes, an Aer Lingus employee, a 38-year-old father of three young children, was killed. The 50th anniversary of his death has passed, and it is regrettable that no one has been held accountable. I met his son, Brendan Hayes, recently. Without commenting on our discussion, I would say that it brought to the fore the lack of awareness of the importance of engaging with family members in the aftermath of such traumatic events, and the need to keep them informed of developments in the investigations. In the 1970s, family liaison was not an established concept in policing but, thankfully, policing today is in a very different position, and family liaison is embedded in policing practice. In the joint framework on legacy agreed by the Irish and British Governments last year, both Governments have recognised that we need to have a victim-centred approach to investigations into Troubles-related incidents.

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Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-02-11/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-14T01:01:02+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-02-11