AFTER a decade the terrible emptiness and heartbreak caused by the troubles’ most appalling atrocity are as real as they were the summer’s day they were inflicted.

PETER KENNEDY (Letters, July 5) snidely recommends that Nuala O’Loan and Tony Blair conduct an inquiry about the killing of an Iraqi named Baha Mousa by British soldiers, based on a report by Robert Fisk.

The Ulster Defence Association must shoulder the responsibility to de-escalate tensions within its community, Martin McGuinness said today.

Incoming Northern Police Ombudsman Al Hutchinson should carry out a root and branch overhaul to weed out those allegedly leaking sensitive security force material, a retired policeman said today.

A former Canadian Mountie is to become the new policing Ombudsman for the North.

Nobody will be brought to justice on the back of the long-awaited report into the 1974 Dublin and Monaghan bombings, the Taoiseach said today.

LABOUR has promised to part-fund mortgages for families struggling to get on the housing ladder.

SURELY your columnist Steven King (Irish Examiner, January 31) does not expect us to believe there was no collusion between British state forces and loyalist paramilitaries during the Troubles in the North.

IT is both ludicrous and hypocritical to hear Foreign Affairs Minister Dermot Ahern call on the British government to strengthen the powers of Police Ombudsman Nuala O’Loan in the wake of the appalling collusion she uncovered between the security forces in the North and loyalist paramilitaries.

ACCORDING to the White House, the ‘war on terror’ makes “no distinction between those who commit acts of terror and those who support and harbour terrorists.

I WISH to congratulate Raymond McCord Snr for his courage and determination to discover the facts concerning the murder of his son.

Relatives of the Omagh bomb victims are bracing themselves for a harrowing new ordeal as the man accused of the North’s worst single terrorist atrocity goes on trial in Belfast tomorrow.

THE Ulster Unionists are facing fresh demands to sever their ties with a loyalist party after the father of a murder victim claimed he had received death threats.

A man was killed in a hit-and-run accident in Co Derry today.

A man and a woman were questioned today about the murders of six men who were shot dead as they watched the 1994 World Cup on television at a pub in Northern Ireland.

THE family of a murdered Donegal councillor yesterday renewed calls for an independent public inquiry — 15 years after the killing by loyalist paramilitaries.

Four staff members at Northern Ireland Police Ombudsman Nuala O’Loan’s office are at the centre of a criminal investigation, it emerged today.

Almost half of complaints lodged with Northern Ireland’s Police Ombudsman over the past five years came from the Protestant community, figures revealed today.

THE new Garda Ombudsman Commission will have the staffing and budget to match the Police Ombudsman in the North, according to Justice Minister Michael McDowell.

The new Garda Ombudsman Commission will have the staffing and the budget to match the Police Ombudsman in Northern Ireland, it was claimed tonight.

The Government tonight ruled out a public inquiry into the alleged murder of a Belfast man by RUC police informers.

It remains to be seen whether the boast by Justice Minister Michael McDowell that there would be “huge public confidence” in the Garda Ombudsman Commission when its board is announced sometime in the near future turns out to be mere wishful thinking on his part.

Omagh bomb suspect Sean Hoey was committed for trial today on a catalogue of charges related to the horrific attack in which 29 people were killed.

A policewoman has died after her armoured Land Rover patrol vehicle crashed in the North today.

A man who died when he crashed his car while being pursued by police in Co Antrim was an ex-policeman, it was revealed tonight.

An eagerly-awaited IRA statement on its future could come before early August, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern told the Dáil tonight.

MUCH has been made of the excellent findings of the two Morris reports.

THE man responsible for overseeing the setting up of the new three-person police Ombudsman Commission here last night said some of their powers were “nonsense” because they would have to get permission to enter a garda station.

Police fired shots today after a high risk prisoner escaped from a court room in Northern Ireland.

GERRY ADAMS yesterday appealed to witnesses to a fatal road accident in west Belfast involving a police Land Rover to help Northern Ireland’s Police Ombudsman establish what exactly happened.

A new team of detectives has been brought in to probe a loyalist paramilitary murder dogged by allegations of a police cover-up, it was revealed tonight.

Northern Ireland's top policeman has criticised the judges there for being “lenient” on terrorists and criminals.

GARDAÍ will be left open to accusations of bias as the new Ombudsman Commission is not a totally independent body, a garda representative body believes.

FURTHER proof, if it were needed, of the twisted face of the RUC in the eyes of nationalists, has again been demonstrated by the North’s Police Ombudsman Nuala O’Loan.

PROFESSOR Niamh Brennan may feel vindicated. Her comment that she would be ‘reluctant’ to contact the gardaí if she was the victim of an assault, after news of her son’s mugging was leaked to The Star, has been followed within hours by another high-profile leak.

The author of a report into collusion between the security forces and paramilitary killers in Northern Ireland is to attend a Belfast conference into corruption within police force ranks.

Policing in Northern Ireland has changed more in the last 18 months than in the previous 80 years, it was claimed today.

Republicans faced new pressure today to end intimidation of young Catholics bidding to join Northern Ireland’s police service.

A 34 year-old man appeared in court today charged in connection with a bid to launch a major fire bomb attack on Belfast city centre at the weekend.

A man was shot in the arm and six police officers injured during a series of ram raids in Co Down today.

Decisions by police to fire plastic baton rounds in a bid to quell a number of riots in Northern Ireland were backed today by police ombudsman Nuala O’Loan.

The North's police ombudsman, Nuala O’Loan, has given a broad welcome to the North’s Police Board’s recommendation to appoint an officer from outside the PSNI to play a key role in the investigation into the Omagh bombing.

The North’s Police Board has agreed to appoint an officer from outside the PSNI to play a key role in the investigation into the Omagh bombing.

Omagh bomb victims are today meeting the Northern Ireland Policing Board in the latest round in the row over the investigation into the atrocity.