Dolours Price interviews to be given to PSNI

Transcripts of interviews given by former IRA bomber Dolours Price are expected to be given to the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) after an appeal court in the US ruled they should be handed over.

The interviews, carried out as part of Boston College’s Belfast Project, which interviewed Catholics and Protestants involved in the Troubles, are wanted as part of PSNI’s Disappeared inquiry.

The interview given by Ms Price allegedly includes claims that she drove one of the disappeared, Jean McConville, to her death in 1972.

The Disappeared were people abducted, killed and buried by the IRA.

Former IRA member Anthony McIntyre, now a historian, and Ed Moloney, a journalist, both argued that handing the tapes over would damage the peace process in Northern Ireland and that Ms Price had been promised anonymity until after death to do the interview.

Boston College also appealed the decision separately, saying that tapes by 24 other interviewees were not of value to any investigation. The court rejected this.

Ms Price gave a newspaper interview where she claimed she was part of the Belfast Project.

DUP (Democratic Unionist Party) MP Gregory Campbell said: “This is a step closer to establishing if there is information in the tapes that might be of assistance to the authorities in Northern Ireland.

“This could lead to the investigation of many senior personnel within the IRA and other groups about matters they were involved in, and if that is the case, it would be welcome.”

Ms Price was involved in the Old Bailey car bomb in London on March 8, 1973, injuring more than 200 people.

The Belfast Project took place over five years from 2001 and included academics, historians and journalists conducting interviews with loyalists and republicans about what they did during the Troubles.