The intelligence also suggests that he did provide sensitive information to PIRA and that he did so "for reasons of self preservation".

BBC: Dublin reporter

The senior PAC (provisional army council) member had been approached by several PIRA members and others requesting that Tom Oliver not be killed.

BBC: Dublin reporter

They were shot dead by the Provisional IRA (PIRA) in an ambush in south Armagh, shortly after they left a meeting in Dundalk garda station.

BBC: Smithwick Inquiry: Former IRA members refuse to testify

That a senior PIRA member revealed he was responsible for the murder of John McNulty in 1989 after someone informed the IRA that Mr McNulty was meeting with RUC officers.

BBC: Dublin reporter

It took place in April 2011, and the judge said it was attended by three former IRA members, one of whom "had direct knowledge of the PIRA operation of 20 March 1989".

BBC: Smithwick Inquiry: Former IRA members refuse to testify

In his view, "capitulation (i.e. a decision to take food) by one of the hunger strikers would be of enormous value to us, not just in itself but because of the great disarray into which the PIRA propaganda effort would be thrown".

BBC: Northern Ireland