This article was last updated on April 16, 2022
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Former Prime Minister Tony Blair has called On The Runs (OTRs) scheme for fugitive IRA members vital for the peace process in Northern Ireland.
Mr Blair has said that NI peace process would not be successful if his Labour administration had not agreed to send 200 “letters of comfort” to IRA terror suspects assuring them they were no longer wanted by the U.K. authorities for their past crimes after Sinn Fein’s requests.
The controversial letters from NI Police Service had sparked uproar during 2014 after John Downey, who denied murdering four soldiers in the 1982 bombing during trial at the Old Bailey, had received a similar letter in error informing him he was no longer being pursued in Northern Ireland or elsewhere.
Afterwards, when MPs launched an investigation into halting the prosecution of Downey, Mr Blair has accepted responsibility for running the scheme through an appropriate procedure, which led to some fugitives being mistakenly sent letters, and apologised to the people who had been affected by this.
However, he has also told of not making any apology to those people who should actually have got the letters
Mr Blair has become the part of investigation as he was premier and also one of the most important witnesses to the inquiry at the time of agreeing to scheme.
While giving evidence to MPs investigating the scheme, Mr Blair has told: “The issue of OTRs was absolutely critical to the peace process and at certain points became fundamental to it.
“If I had been saying we are not dealing with this in any way at all, you can never be certain of these things but I think it is likely that the process would have collapsed.”
The ex-PM has told MPs if he had not agreed to the suggestions made by Sinn Fein then the party would have walked away from the Good Friday Agreement, adding that the scheme was central to get Sinn Fein on board with overhauled policing arrangements
He has said: “The purpose on everything we have done was to create peace in Northern Ireland so that there were not more victims of terrorism and more families distressed and losing loved ones as a result of that terrorism.”
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