Casting light on blasts that has shadowed hundreds of lives

Political Editor Harry McGee reports on the Oireachtas report on the Dublin/Monaghan bombings.

In five weeks' time, it will be 20 years since loyalist bombs ripped through Dublin city centre and the town of Monaghan claiming 34 lives and casting a wretched shadow over the lives of hundreds of injured victims and relatives.

Down through those years, a small and determined group of relatives and victims have campaigned relentlessly more often than not met by the stony silence of authorities for justice.

The belated response of politicians and the institutions of State in the South has not escaped criticism but has gradually pieced together a fuller and clearer picture of the horror and suffering of the May 1974 atrocities and the shameful response of the authorities of the time. One of the most eye-opening details to have emerged is that the garda investigations into the bombings riddled with serious errors and blunders as they were were shut down within six weeks. And never reopened.

At times, the delays for relatives and victims have seemed interminable. When Justice Henry Barron published his report last December, following a four-year inquiry conducted by his team, there were some who believed that the decision to submit the report to an Oireachtas sub-committee for a further inquiry was the Government's way of kicking the matter into touch.

However, that sub-committee's report, published yesterday within the promised time schedule, has turned out to be more muscular and proactive than had been predicted. Its findings, rather than kicking the matter to touch, have in fact kicked it into the British Government's court.

The Justice for the Forgotten group still favour a full international judicial inquiry, but have agreed to take part, with certain caveats, in the Commission of Inquiry recommended for the South. It must be pointed out that another group representing a minority of survivors and relatives has rejected the report in its entirety as it did Judge Barron's report.

The hearings held over the past three months by the committee, chaired by Fianna Fáil TD Sean Ardagh, proved more than a re-airing of the Barron findings. Significantly, in the first pages of yesterday's report, particular prominence is given to the searing testimony given to the committee by victims and bereaved relatives, which was heart-breaking to hear even after so many years. In addition, the convincing evidence of former diplomat Sean Donlon that collusion between loyalists and security services in the North was probable rather than possible was significant. As was the evidence of members of the FG-Labour coalition of 1974 who challenged Judge Barron's finding that the Irish Government at the time failed to show adequate concern.

In that regard, the committee believed that the judge was entitled to form that view on the response of the Government of the day. It concludes it "would have been of assistance to Judge Barron" if he had received the submissions of the relevant minister prior to completing his report.

For a number of weeks, there was much speculation that the committee would fall short of calling for a full judicial inquiry.

Technically, that is the case.

A Commission of Investigation will carry out further inquiries into the inadequacy of the garda investigations and the documents that went missing in the Department of Justice.

Its wider recommendation, it could be argued, reflects the reality of the major obstacles that faced Judge Barron in his quest for information from the British authorities. It is not practical to hold a judicial inquiry in this jurisdiction that would have no powers to compel witnesses or discover documents in the places where it really matters, the North and Britain. Politically, the recommendation seems to be astute and realistic. As the committee points out, those who planned and carried out the bombings came from the North; and the information and documentation that may touch on collusion is in the North or in Britain.

Essentially, what is envisaged is an investigation that exactly replicates the model under which Judge Peter Cory operated.

He investigated four cases of alleged collusion in the North and two in the South.

However, for that to happen Taoiseach Bertie Ahern would have to persuade British prime minister Tony Blair to agree to such an inquiry taking place. Given the paltry co-operation given by the British authorities to the Barron Inquiry and its hand-wringing over publishing the Cory reports (after inexcusable delay, they are to be published today), there is little hope of the British government acceding to the request.

If co-operation is not forthcoming, the committee goes on to recommend that the Irish Government institutes proceedings in the European Court of Human Rights.

Those moves may be gestural, but they at least reflect the only realistic hope of coming to the truth about why the bombings took place - and if the perpetrators acted on their own or were supported by the secret or security services.

As Sean Ardagh says in his preface: "In human terms the true cost of these atrocities is incalculable."

He could have added that the continued stonewalling by the British authorities remains unforgivable.