The Irish and British governments' plans to grant immunity to so-called on-the-run paramilitaries are morally bankrupt, argues Mark Hennessy, Political Correspondent
Gary Sheehan was 23 when he was sent to Derrada Wood in Ballinamore, Co Leitrim, in the final hours of the hunt for kidnapped supermarket chief Don Tidey in December 1983.
Shortly after his arrival, the cadet garda joined Pte Patrick Kelly and nearly 1,000 other gardaí and soldiers as they closed in on an eight-man gang holding Tidey.
The shooting quickly started.
By the time it ended an hour later, Tidey had been released, though the kidnappers had escaped the net. However, Sheehan, a cadet garda who had been sent from Templemore College, and Kelly lay dead.
Up until now, no one has ever been prosecuted for either murder - killings for which the perpetrators could have faced the death penalty if they had been prosecuted at the time.
The killers of Gary Sheehan and Patrick Kelly will be able to apply for the presidential pardons proposed by the Government to deal with the issue of "on-the-runs".
Twenty-five years ago, a 15-year-old Enniskillen boy, Paul Maxwell, and 14-year-old Nicholas Knatchbull went fishing in a boat inside Mullaghmore harbour, Co Sligo.
Three men, including a 31-year-old fitter from Carrickmacross, Thomas McMahon, watched carefully from the shoreline through binoculars.
Within minutes the boat disintegrated, blown to smithereens by a bomb placed there earlier by McMahon, killing the two boys, and the queen's uncle-in-law, Lord Louis Mountbatten, and the dowager Lady Brabourne.
McMahon subsequently served 19 years for planting the bomb before he was released under the Belfast Agreement, while another man arrested was acquitted.
McMahon's third companion, who never served a day in jail, can also apply for a presidential pardon proposed by the Government to deal with the issue of "on-the-runs", who are known by the acronym OTRs.
Questioned about the proposal's morality, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and Minister for Justice Michael McDowell bristle with irritation: the OTRs are an anachronism and must be dealt with.
However, there is a major difference.
Today, the Government is prepared to offer paramilitaries who escaped the rigours of the law freedom from jail without ever having to admit their guilt and without serving a day in jail.
In Northern Ireland, the British government is prepared to go even further by extending the "get out of jail" card to members of the security forces involved in collusion killings.
Justifying the decision, both governments declare that the OTRs would have been released after the Belfast Agreement if they had been in jail before April 1998.
In other words, they did not qualify because they were never caught, so they should qualify now. But if they had then been in jail on either side of the Border they would have served two years.
Furthermore, if they had been in jail in the State they would have been released on licence - and thus subject to being put back in jail if they returned to old habits - and not freed by presidential pardon, as the Government proposes.
Following apartheid's demise, both black and white South Africans were able to claim immunity for crimes by appearing before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
The difference between the South African example and here, of course, is that people had to admit their guilt, seek the forgiveness of their victims, or the families of murdered victims, and to do so in public.
Eligibility bodies in the State and in Northern Ireland, on the other hand, will meet in private to decide if applicants coming before them are "qualifying persons".
Some of them, particularly in the North, will be easy enough to deal with, since the individuals may have escaped from jail after conviction, skipped bail or disappeared after questioning.
However, the prosecuting authorities may never have prepared cases against many others. Intelligence assessments alone may be all that exists to link them to particular crimes.
Though it may struggle in the House of Lords, the British legislation does not require people to admit their guilt, indeed it does not even require them to appear before the body. A non-appearance will be treated as not guilty.
Unlike the model being followed in this State, the British legislation is broken into two parts: one dealing with those who actually fled justice, while the second part covers those who never left at all but who may face prosecution from the current review of "cold cases" dating back 30 years by the Police Service of Northern Ireland.
Given the problems caused by time and memory, very few such prosecutions are likely, but DNA and other forensic advances could ensure that at least some of those musty case files could lead to a court and to a jail sentence.
Should the PSNI ever make such progress, however, the prosecution will come to a quick halt, as the suspect will be able to go before the eligibility body and qualify for a certificate that will grant them freedom from prosecution.
So far, it is not yet clear how far the immunity from prosecution will extend in this State, but that is only because the Government has decided to opt for presidential pardons, thus avoiding the need to spell things out in legislation, and because they have refused repeatedly to explain the details behind the proposal.
Since the British legislation does not include a finish date for the eligibility body's existence, it can be assumed that the Government's model will do the same. Paramilitaries can keep their heads down and do nothing until the off-chance arises that they face prosecution, in which case they can go before either body and claim immunity.
Though the morality of the Government's proposal is doubtful, the British government's decision to offer it to British soldiers and RUC officers involved in so-called collusion killings is an obscenity, since the forces of law and order can never, and should never, be put on the same moral plane as terrorists, regardless of the temptation.
Following the publication of the British government's legislation early last month, Michael McDowell issued a one-page statement to announce the Government's plans.
The Government's OTR proposals would, he trumpeted, not cover those convicted of killing Det Garda Jerry McCabe and wounding his colleague, Ben O'Sullivan, in Adare in 1996.
Nor would it cover others wanted in connection with the offences, one of whom, Paul Damery, from Cobh, Co Cork, was last heard to be in Nicaragua, while the other, Gerry Roche, who lived in Shannon, lives somewhere on the Continent.
However distasteful, most people accept prisoner releases had to happen, taking comfort from the fact that those freed had been convicted and had served some jail time.
However, to the Government's shame and to the much greater shame of the British, the OTRs, and those who never had to go on the run because they were never caught or suspected, will do neither.
If such a concession is necessary to deal with the past, those who qualify should be given a year to come forward, admit their guilt in public and then be released under licence, and not by pardon.