Statement by Taoiseach Micheál Martin on publication of the final Kenova Report
- Published on: 9 December 2025
- Last updated on: 9 December 2025
I welcome the publication today of the final report by Operation Kenova. I want to acknowledge the steadfast work of the Kenova team over many years. The report is a catalogue of tragedy, failure and hurt that affected all communities.
It sheds essential light on the harrowing pain and loss caused to individuals, to their families, and through the systematic exercise of terror, to communities at large by the Provisional IRA. It shows the complicity of British state forces in allowing this to happen when it suited their ends, failing to include individuals and communities in their calculation of the public good.
I acknowledge with regret the absence of the full Denton Report. However, I acknowledge the summary of the Denton Report included in today’s wider Kenova report, which is in itself official recognition that a network of loyalist paramilitaries, which included members of both RUC and UDR, murdered up to 120 people, among them those killed in Dublin and Monaghan in May 1974.
While this finding was expected, it is shocking and seismic none the less. It is also the case that suspected and known collusion by individuals, time and again during the Troubles and now confirmed in this Report, had a corrosive effect on confidence in wider state forces, to the detriment of all.
The gravity of the findings in this report across Kenova, Mizzenmast, Turma and Denton is a reminder of the gravity of the suffering of all those affected.
Dealing with the legacy of the Troubles remains essential work for both Governments. I welcome the publication of this Report in that context, including its acknowledgement of good cooperation by Irish authorities. Importantly, reciprocal cooperation is at the heart of the Joint Framework on Legacy agreed in September. I welcome in particular the commitment by the UK authorities in the Framework to provide reciprocal cooperation to Ireland for investigations, inquiries and inquests carried out in this jurisdiction.