Irish politicians are to demand that Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams resigns as a member of the Dublin parliament in the wake of the latest claims by IRA member Dolours Price.
Convicted bomber Price claimed again at the weekend that Adams was an IRA leader and that he authorised the Old Bailey bombing in London.
She also told the Sunday Telegraph that Adams ordered him to bring captives across the border to the Republic where they were shot.
Now parties in the Irish parliament are to demand that Adams steps down as a TD and fight the allegations according to a report in the Irish Independent newspaper.
It says that Adams is set to come under major pressure in the Dail (parliament) after former close ally Price made the shocking claims about his involvement in IRA executions.
The paper says: “Many deputies now believe the Sinn Fein president must come clean on his IRA past amid fresh allegations by Price, again linking him to the murder of Belfast mother-of-10 Jean McConville.
“The McConville family have already demanded, in an interview with the Irish Independent earlier this month, that gardai (police) arrest the Sinn Fein leader over these allegations.”
Price, whose testimony also appears on the Boston College Tapes, claimed in the interview that Adams was Officer Commanding of the Belfast Brigade of the Provisional IRA.
She also stated that he ordered her to drive alleged informers across the border into the Republic of Ireland, where they would be executed.
She said Adams was the key decision-maker in the IRA bombing campaign in Britain and recruited volunteers for the bombing campaign, warning it would be a ‘hanging offence’ if they were caught.
Price further claimed that Adams approved of the 1973 bombing of the Old Bailey court house in London, which killed one man and injured 200 other people.
She also directly implicated Adams in the killing by the IRA of McConville, one of the so-called disappeared and said that Adams called her the night McConville was captured by the IRA and that he normally ordered her ‘to take the people away’.
Price said: “I drove away Jean McConville. I don’t know who gave the instructions to execute her.
Obviously it was decided between the General Headquarters staff and the people in Belfast.
“Gerry Adams would have been part of that negotiation as to what was to happen to her.”
Price had also admitted that she has fallen out with Adams over the peace process and is angry with him for denying he was a member of the IRA.
In a statement, Adams rejected her claims and said: “I reject again, as I have consistently rejected, the allegations.”
But Fine Gael party chairman Charlie Flanagan told the Irish Independent that it is time for Adams to ‘come clean’ about his IRA past.
Flanagan said: “Adams and Sinn Fein cannot embrace democratic norms until they face up to their past. The ballot box must be firmly held in both hands.”
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