Last week a man who by his own admission was linked to the Birmingham pub bombings, made a half-hearted apology.
Only Michael Hayes can explain why he decided to stand in full combat clothing in front of a BBC journalist and make such a bizarre statement.
Known as 'Mad Mick' he'd made a similar admission regarding the Brighton bombing the previous year to a journalist from The Sun.
The IRA bombing campaign in England was ruthless - and gained publicity for the organisation in a way that the deaths of Irish men and women on home soil never could.
It also helped to make the thousands of Irish people living and working in England into public enemy number one.
Many readers will remember when a flight to London resulted in being quarantined to a locked room for several hours before being marched onto the runway flanked by armed guards like a contagion.
Keeping silent on the Tube in case your accent caused a backlash from other passengers.
It was an attitude towards Irish people that helped wrongfully convict six innocent people for the Birmingham pub bombings, a miscarriage of justice that denied the victims the answers they deserved.
And so while Mick Hayes's apology, as vague and insincere as it was, may seem like a step in the right direction in reality what will it achieve in the long run?
This week West Midlands police asked the BBC to provide a copy of the interview.
The deaths of the 21 people killed on November 21, 1974, remains an unsolved crime since the court of appeal quashed the convictions of the six men wrongly convicted in 1991.
Julie Hambleton, whose 18-year-old sister died in the Birmingham pub bombings described the former IRA man as "gutless and spineless" and said his apology was offensive.
And I'm terms of truth, justice and reconciliation it was just that.
Hayes lives in Dublin he knows he said enough to get publicity but not enough to achieve a European Arrest Warrant, the threshold for the extradition treaty requires more than just suspicion.
What this perplexing story does do is show the limitations for any future truth and reconciliation process. Hayes's apology without answers and justice offended the victims' families.
Even if he were to be extradited charged and stand trial, which seems unlikely, and be convicted, even more unlikely, the terms of the Good Friday Agreement mean he'd only serve two years in jail. And so the question of how do we deal with the past in a compassionate way is once again raised.
Hayes seems to revel in his IRA past. Locked into that time as many are we are left with the impression he's told these stories many times over the years, more bragging than confessing.
His motivation in facing the cameras we can only guess but he is a man who clearly likes publicity.
Ten years of devolution has failed all victims of the Troubles in failing to implement measures to take the process forward, it has left a vacuum for people like Hayes to fill.
Add this to 40 years of British misrule, and in some cases collusion with killers, and no wonder people like Julie Hambleton feel angry, they've every right to be, given how badly they've been treated by successive governments.
It is time that, as flawed as they are, the processes agreed during Stormont House be implemented. That's not going to happen locally at this stage without a functioning executive and therefore it falls to the British and Irish governments to step in.
To bring some semblance of justice and closure to the now ageing victims' families.
People who have waited in some cases over 40 years for help.
Some who have suffered in silence behind closed doors, others who have dedicated their lives and channelled their grief into justice campaigns.
But all with the same heart aching sense of loss, magnified by a huge sense of injustice.
The conflict in Northern Ireland that at times reached across the border and at other times across the channel to England, was indeed a dirty war.
It has since turned into a dirty peace and a process that did not have the needs of victims at its core and that is a shameful stain on the history of this island.
