(Joe Oliver, The People)

Tony Blair was prepared to issue an amnesty to all on-the-run IRA terrorists in order to kick-start the Assembly, it was claimed last night. Mr Blair and his Secretary of State Paul Murphy were said to have agreed the deal with Sinn Féin last October before David Trimble and his UUP team pulled out of talks.

The claim by hardline unionist MP David Burnside follows hard on the heels of reports that the Irish Government had also planned to free the killers of murdered Garda Jerry McCabe as part of a package to restore the Assembly.

Mr Burnside, a fierce critic of his party leader in the past, said: "I thank God the Ulster Unionist Party had the sense to suspect there was a hidden agenda.

"If the price of peace is to dole out an amnesty to IRA killers and bombers then it is a price not worth paying." Under the Blair deal around 40 rogue terrorists would have had the slate wiped clean. The list included bombers and gunmen responsible for scores of deaths.

One of the most high profile is Charlie Caufield, wanted in connection with the Enniskillen Poppy Day massacre in 1987. He was named in the House of Commons as the mastermind behind the atrocity, which claimed 11 lives. Caufield, 49, is known to be in Co Monaghan with his schoolteacher girlfriend.

Others include:

• Leonard 'Bap' Hardy, 43, who served five years in an Irish jail for possessing explosives and is wanted in Northern Ireland over a no-warning blast that killed a Protestant schoolboy, 11, in 1982.
• Double muderer Liam Averill, 37, who escaped from the Maze prison dressed as a woman during a party for prisoners' children in 1997.
• Anthony Kelly, 43, who escaped from the Maze in the 1983 mass break-out, where he was serving life for the murder of police reservist David Wray. He is living in Bundoran, Co Donegal, where he is registered as a voter.
• Rita O'Hare, 60, Sinn Féin's publicity director in the US, is still wanted for absconding while on bail 29 years ago. She admitted charges arising from a gun attack on British soldiers but escaped extradition from the Republic by claiming it was a political offence.

A trawl of the wanted archives also includes the name of Robert 'Fats' Campbell, suspected of being the machine-gunner who killed SAS Captain Herbert Westmacott during a gun battle with the IRA in north Belfast in 1980.

Owen Carron, 50, who jumped bail and fled across the border after being arrested for alleged possession of an AK47 and Dermot McNally, 46, another Maze escaper are also on the list.

South Antrim MP Burnside, said: "It would not just stop with an amnesty - there are so many more concessions demanded by Sinn Féin and possibly already agreed to by the two governments.

"Yet the IRA still retains its weapons and its criminal empire." He added: "Under no circumstances would I support the Ulster Unionist Party going back into government with Sinn Féin."

This article appeared first in The People on May 16, 2004.