The IRA is again in the dock over its handling of cases of alleged sex abuse. Co Louth man, Paudie McGahon, claims he'd to give evidence before a kangaroo court about his rape by a Provo.
He says the IRA sat as judge, jury and executioner offering him, and another victim, three choices of punishment for their rapist.
The IRA should never have been investigating such cases. Its own supporters might justify that at the height of the conflict. But even they couldn't defend such a course of action in 2002.
The picture Paudie painted of a kangaroo court in a bedroom with an 'a,b and c' multiple choice of punishments on offer, and a female counsellor in tow in case the victims wanted a quick chat, was ludicrous.
The IRA may have thought that by offering to shoot the alleged perpetrator, it had "done its bit". That was never so.
For no-one to inform gardai, or at the very least social services, of the allegations is disgraceful. An alleged abuser was exiled to England where he was potentially free to keep on raping. Were English teenagers deemed not worthy of protection?
The IRA publicised the names of small-time drug dealers and criminals it had ordered out of the country. Yet sex abusers were never named and shamed.
But inadequate and irresponsible as the IRA's actions were, the behaviour of the intelligence services regarding Kincora was in another league.
Former British Army press officer Colin Wallace has told how for six years the authorities knew boys were being systematically abused but did nothing to protect them.
The rapists were allowed to keep raping. For years, the paedophiles faced no court, official or kangaroo. Amnesty International has raised claims that the boys were used as sexual bait in a blackmail trap.
Nobody cared enough about these youngsters to offer even the brutal, misguided alternative justice of a bullet in the back of their rapists' heads. And still the authorities prolong the victims' trauma.
Last week, the British government refused their request that Kincora be included within the scope of the Westminster inquiry, rather than the Northern Ireland Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry which has no powers to compel evidence or witnesses.
The men in suits, not just the ones who wore balaclavas, are still failing the victims of sex abuse.
