Mairia Cahill with Taoiseach Enda Kenny at Government Buildings last week
Solicitor Peter Madden, who represents the four people Maíria Cahill said interrogated her after she was raped by an IRA member when she was 16, spoke to Gavin Jennings on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland this morning.
Gavin Jennings: “Peter Madden, of Madden and Finucane Solicitors, who represents Padraic Wilson, Seamus Finucane, Briege Wright and Maura McCrory, yesterday published a letter he wrote to the Taoiseach last week, saying he’d advised his clients against any meeting. Peter Madden is on the phone now, good morning to you.”
Peter Madden: “Good morning, Gavin.”
Jennings: “Why won’t your clients meet the Taoiseach?”
Madden: “Well it seems to me, having looked at the transcript of the Dáil meeting on the 22nd of October, last Wednesday, that the Taoiseach has already made his mind up about this. And he has already stated very clearly that, and stated as fact, that my clients were members of the IRA and he doesn’t even state that as an allegation. What he said is, and I’m reading from the transcript, he said that the central issue here, a young woman who was raped and sexually abused being required by powerful people, within the IRA, to attend at a meeting and having to face her abuser. So he’s taken that as a fact when in fact this is not a fact at the moment. It is a fact but it’s a disputed fact and it’s an allegation. So, it seems to me that the Taoiseach attempting to meet people in which allegations, unproved allegations actually, to meet with him is some sort of political stunt, I would say, because the fact is that they, these people, my clients, four of my clients have been acquitted by a court on these same allegations.”
Gavin Jennings: “Maíria Cahill has been consistent in her claims for many months now. Some people, many people indeed, would argue that her consistency over a long period of time gives her great credibility. What would you say? ”
Madden: “Well I would say that her credibility could only be tested properly in a court of law. And that was, that was arranged. A trial was due to take place, in which she would make the allegations in court and she would be challenged on those allegations. Now my clients have waited four years to challenge the allegations that she’s made and she has made with great detail and, in fact, two of my clients, Maura McCrory and Briege Wright, have worked tirelessly for years on the Falls Women Centre, helping abused women and children and she has made these allegations about the, all four, including Briege Wright and Maura McCrory – they are untested and, it seems to me that, the Taoiseach can not conduct any sort of inquiry into this affair at all. It’s a matter for the courts. The courts in the North here has the same system, in the North, it’s practically the same system in the North as it is in the South, I practice in both jurisdictions in criminal law and it’s very, very similar.”Continue reading →