merrion street

Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs Eamon Gilmore today expressed his sympathy for the family of PSNI officer Ronan Kerr, who was killed in a bomb attack in Omagh, Co Tyrone, yesterday.

Speaking on RTÉ Radio 1, the Tánaiste said:

First of all my sympathy goes out to the family of Ronan Kerr. This was in the first instance an awful human loss. I think of his brother for example coming back from Australia who heard about this apparently on Facebook, didn’t know about it before that, I think of the friends and colleagues and family of Ronan Kerr. This was an evil act, and the Government absolutely condemns it. We will work with the administration in Northern Ireland and support them and support the PSNI in attempting to bring to justice those who were responsible for it. I spoke this morning with both Peter Robinson, First Minister and Martin McGuinness Deputy First Minister and I've also had contact with the leader of the SDLP and I’ve assured them that the Irish Government will support them and will support the PSNI in their efforts to bring these people to justice and to ensure that the intent of this act which is to discourage participation in the PSNI, which is to set back the peace process, that that will not succeed. I also spoke last night, had a conversation by telephone with the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Eoin Patterson and we are both agreed that both governments, the UK Government and the Irish Government, will continue to strongly support the administration in Northern Ireland. We are not going to be deflected by this. There has been so much work put into building the peace in Northern Ireland that we cannot allow a tiny minority of people who have no mandate from anybody who are intent just on evil to blow it off course and we will provide whatever support is necessary to do that.