Paul Quinn’s mother says Sinn Féin minister ‘smeared our son’

Breege Quinn, the mother of 21-year-old Paul Quinn from Co Armagh who was brutally murdered in 2007, has called on Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald to remove Conor Murphy from his post as finance minister in the North.

Ms Quinn said that Conor Murphy had at the time suggested her son’s death was connected to criminal activity.

Ms McDonald told RTÉ on Monday she did not think Mr Murphy suggested Mr Quinn was involved in criminality.

But comments emerged on the RTÉ leaders’ debate on Tuesday night in which Mr Murphy told the BBC in 2007: “Paul Quinn was involved in smuggling and criminality. I think everyone accepts that.”

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Ms McDonald on Tuesday night accepted the comments had been made and said an apology made.

On Wednesday morning, Ms Quinn told BBC Radio Ulster’s Stephen Nolan show that she is heartbroken at the developments and has called for Ms Murphy to step down.

She said she was not looking for justice just because an election is on, but has been looking for it “morning noon and night for 13 years”.

Referring to Mr Murphy, Ms Quinn said that Ms McDonald “believed him for 13 years and he believed his own lies”.

“He smeared our son. An unrecognisable lad of 21 years of age. He has no compassion for anybody. He is not fit for the job he is in and he was not fit to be an MLA at the time.

“He is not fit to be in government.

“Why did it take 13 years and then in a half an hour for Mary Lou to come out and say Paul wasn’t a criminal and Conor Murphy shouldn’t have said what he said?”

She said her husband had not left the house in years since the murder and she broke down in the course of the radio interview.

She said her son’s name had been “blackened”.

No one has been charged with Mr Quinn’s murder. The Quinn family has always held the IRA responsible.

Mr Quinn, from Cullyhanna, Co Armagh was lured to a barn in Tullycoora, near Oram village, across the Border in Co Monaghan, on October 20th, 2007, where he was set upon by men with metal and nail-studded bars. He was beaten for more than half an hour.

Every major bone in his body was broken. He died at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda a few hours later.