Hume denies police files claim that he was Dublin agent

The Nobel prize winner John Hume has angrily denied a report in old police files that he and other nationalist political leaders in Northern Ireland had been agents of the Irish government. The claim came from a document revealed at the Bloody Sunday tribunal investigating the deaths of 14 civilians at the hands of British troops in Londonderry in January 1972.

The document, dated a few days after the shootings, claimed that Jack Lynch, the Irish Taoiseach at the time, had promised funding for groups working to otherthrown the then Unionist-dominated Stormont government. It claimed that Mr Hume and three other leaders of the nationalist Social Democratic and Labour party (SDLP) ­ Ivan Cooper, Austin Currie and Paddy O'Hanlon ­ were intelligence officers for the Dublin government. It added: "It is also worth recalling previous intelligence to the effect that Mr Lynch's intelligence officers in Northern Ireland are Messrs Cooper, Currie, O'Hanlon and Hume, the latter now having publicly stated that only a united Ireland will satisfy the minority." The document was the work of the special branch of the Royal Ulster Constabulary, since replaced by the Police Service of Northern Ireland.

Describing the claim as "a load of nonsense", Mr Hume said it was incredible that police would say such a thing. He added: "It came as a surprise, but then, when I thought of the RUC of those days, it's not a surprise. They would know so very little, not only about our own community but our relations with the south. It's not surprising that the RUC of those days, who were drawn totally from the Unionist community, would be so ignorant about sensitivities."

Few will quarrel with Mr Hume's assertion that the special branch was notoriously out of touch with nationalism, and the department had a distinct Unionist ethos. The most obvious example of its inaccuracy was seen in August 1971 when the branch provided wildly incorrect lists of republicans to be interned without trial. This has been noted in republican, security and political quarters.

In Chris Ryder's recent book The Fateful Split, the security expert wrote of "the abysmal quality of the outdated intelligence", adding: "In some cases, fathers and sons with the same names had been confused. The omission of any Protestant subversives was a bigoted and costly blunder."

The SDLP has always been regarded as close to Irish governments in a political sense, since the party and most southern parties have been in favour of promoting Irish nationalism by peaceful means. Last week, Mr Hume announced he was bowing out of front-line politics.