By Brendan Anderson

Irish Republicans are still reeling from the confession by a senior Sinn Fein member that he acted as an agent for British intelligence for over 20 years.

Denis Donaldson, described earlier this year by Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams as a “close friend,” rocked the country with his admission that he had been spying on his colleagues and reporting back to MI5 and police Special Branch since the early 1980s.

Donaldson, a 55-year-old former IRA prisoner who rose to become Sinn Fein’s head of administration at Stormont Assembly Buildings, told a press conference Friday that he had agreed to work for British intelligence agencies at a time when he had “compromised himself and was in a vulnerable position.”

The revelation led to widespread confusion and dismay not only in political circles, but also in the whole of the population of the North.

Sinn Fein’s chief negotiator Martin McGuinness has called on the British government to put a halt to its continuing spying operations and “end its war on Sinn Fein.”

Donaldson, product of a staunch East Belfast Republican family, was arrested with his son-in-law and a Belfast civil servant three years ago and charged with operating an IRA spy ring at Stormont, heart of the Northern administration.

Police raided Donaldson’s home and his office at Stormont amidst a blaze of publicity, providing anti-Agreement Unionists with the excuse to bring down the Assembly’s power-sharing government.

Republicans insisted that “Stormontgate,” as the affair became known, was engineered by anti-Agreement elements within the establishment who saw devolved government as the slippery road to a united Ireland. Adams and other senior Republicans protested vigorously that the three accused were innocent victims of these “securocrats.”

The claim appeared justified a few days ago when all charges against the men were unexpectedly withdrawn “in the public interest.”

But as Unionists were still screaming “Sinn Fein-British government collusion,” the word went round that Donaldson was on his way to a Dublin hotel where he would confess his treachery to a press conference. It was only then that it became apparent that the charges had been dropped in order to protect a prize British intelligence asset.

Shortly before the press conference, however, Adams pre-empted the confession with an announcement that Sinn Fein had expelled Donaldson after he had confessed to being an informer. The former head of administration, said Adams, had gone to the chairman of the party’s Ulster branch and been told to contact his solicitor.

Donaldson, in a prepared statement, told Irish state broadcaster RTE that he had worked as a spy for over 20 years, reporting to a British intelligence agency, the old Royal Ulster Constabulary Special Branch and latterly the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) Special Branch.

A life-long critic of cigarette smokers, his now heavily nicotine-stained fingers trembled as he admitted being recruited as a British agent when he had “compromised” himself, and later continued informing for money.

His statement in full is as follows: “My name is Denis Donaldson. I worked as the Sinn Fein Assembly group administrator in Parliament Buildings at the time of the PSNI raid on the Sinn Fein offices in October 2002, the so-called Stormontgate affair. I was a British agent at the time. I was recruited in the 1980s after compromising myself during a vulnerable time in my life.

“Since then, I have worked for British intelligence and the RUC/PSNI Special Branch. Over that period I was paid money. My last two contacts with Special Branch were as follows: two days before my arrest in October 2002, and last night, when a member of Special Branch contacted me to arrange a meeting.

“I was not involved in any Republican spy ring at Stormont. The so-called Stormontgate affair was a scam and a fiction. It never existed. It was created by Special Branch.

“I deeply regret my activities with British intelligence and RUC/PSNI Special Branch. I apologize to anyone who has suffered as a result of my activities as well as to my former comrades, and especially to my family who have become victims in all of this.”