had to numerous political colleagues privately over eight years. During the presidential election campaign he changed his story, first in an Irish Press interview, and then on Questions and Answers. Some journalists had been told by Lenihan previously of his role in pressurising Hillery, but had been told it in an 'off the record' conversation and so could not reveal it (though one did hint it in an unsigned editorial in the Irish Independent during the crisis following the programme). However following the programme, Duffy, in a backlash to pressure from Lenihan's Fianna Fáil not to reveal the information, did reveal that Lenihan's account on the programme conflicted with his pre-campaign version. The minor party in Charles Haughey's government, the Progressive Democrats, threatened to quit government and cause a general election unless either Lenihan was sacked from cabinet or an inquiry was ordered into the events of January 1982. When Lenihan refused to resign, Haughey, instead of ordering an inquiry into who had made the calls in 1982, sacked him. The "ill-fated appearance" was remembered in the final episode of Questions and Answers in 2009. Doherty on McCabe death: 1996 Sinn Féin's Pat Doherty also used the show in 1996 to deny the involvement of the Provisional IRA in the death of Jerry McCabe. Members of that group were later convicted of manslaughter and Sinn Féin have campaigned for their early release in conjunction with the Belfast Agreement. Doherty's refusal to condemn the murder was remembered in the final episode of Questions and Answers in 2009. McLaughlin and Michael McDowell on Jean McConville killing: 2005 In 2005, Sinn Féin chairman Mitchel McLaughlin told viewers that though it had been wrong for the Provisional IRA to kill Jean McConville, a widowed mother of ten young children kidnapped, shot and secretly buried, the action was not a "crime". In the aftermath of his comments, he was subjected to extreme criticism from within the Irish government, from all the main parties in Dáil Éireann, the media and by the public on radio shows. Labour Party leader Pat Rabbitte, in a press release immediately afterwards commented that "Any civilised society must consider the abduction and murder of a mother of 10 children to be a crime of considerable barbarism" while Mrs McConville's son Michael said that McLaughlin, along with Sinn Féin TD Arthur Morgan, who had made similar comments elsewhere, "should be holding their