MI5 spy reveals secret 'unauthorised' IRA talks

He has revealed he met IRA leaders in March 1993, despite talks being called off by the British government after IRA bombs killed two young boys in England.

What he said in that meeting encouraged them to declare the ceasefire and move towards the process that eventually led to the 1998 Good Friday Agreement.

The minutes of the meeting had been published by Sinn Fein - the IRA's political wing - in 1994. They allege that the spy said: "The final solution is union… this island will be as one."

"Those words are so controversial and so important," says Taylor in a BBC documentary The MI5 Spy and the IRA: Operation Chiffon.

The journalist says he wanted to hear what was actually said from the spy's own lips, but to do that he would have to track him down.

It is extremely rare to hear an MI5 officer talk about a top-secret operation like this. Its codename was "Chiffon" and it was designed to get the IRA to call a ceasefire and embrace the political process.

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