Plea to Dublin

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32861, 9 March 1972, Page 15

Plea to Dublin

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) BELFAST, March 8. The Northern Ireland Prime Minister (Mr Faulkner) has again appealed to the Government of the Irish Republic for help in curbing the bombing activities of I.R.A. extremists.

He also announced that Northern Ireland had begun recruiting full-time police

reservists to free the province’s hard-pressed regular police force for normal duties.

Mr Faulkner appealed for more reservists, whose main task, he said, would be to protect police stations, and for more recruits for the regular force, several members of which have been the vicitms of guerrilla gunmen. The Prime Minister’s appeals came in a special statement after three Belfast explosions had killed two persons and injured more than 200.

A pre-dawn explosion rocked the largest department store in the city yesterday, causing extensive damage but no casualties. During the day, many Belfast residents stayed at home.

A British Army spokesman said: "There seems to be a growing feeling of despair. People are asking, Tor God’s sake, when is it going to end?”’

In his statement, Mr Faulkner said that large thefts of gelignite in the Irish Republic continued to cause concern in Ulster; substantial quantities were being smuggled into the North. “There is also evidence of some bombs being manufactured in the South,” Mr Faulkner said. IJtA. FUNERAL

Six shots were fired over the grave of a teen-age member of the IJtA. after his burial in Belfast yesterday. The youth, Albert Kavanagh, aged 18, was shot by the police on Saturday as he was planting a bomb in a Belfast factory. Nearly 1000 people marched in military fashion behind the tricolour-draped coffin from Kavanagh’s home in the Falls Road to the cemetery.