Omagh victims criticise government’s failure to meet with them

THE Government’s failure to meet with victims of the Omagh bombing came in for extensive criticism at the Fine Gael Árd Fheis at the weekend.

Speaking at an Árd Fheis session on the victims of terrorism Michael Gallagher, whose son Aidan was killed in the 1998 atrocity, said that he had spent five years attempting to get a meeting with the Irish and British Governments.

“We have been asking and trying to request a meeting with the Taoiseach for five years,” he said adding that Fine Gael was the only party on either side of the boarder to invite him to speak at an Árd Fheis.

“Even in the North, the parties that should be looking after the interests of victims have never invited us,” he said.

Mr Gallagher, whose civil case on behalf of the families of relatives killed in Omagh began last week, also hit out at the failure of the authorities to bring anyone to justice over the atrocity.

“There have even been books written about it and yet not one person has been charged with Omagh,” he said.

Mr Gallagher said the Omagh investigation contrasted sharply with the Spanish investigation into the Madrid train bombings which had already identified and arrested all the culprits. “My observation is that successive Spanish government s are doing something right,” he said.

Addressing the meeting the deputy head of mission at the Spanish Embassy in Dublin, Jose Galegos said that the best way of fighting terrorism was through democratic principles and means.

“We are firmly convinced the democratic system has all the means to put an end to this plague,” he said.

However Mr Galegos warned that any measures introduced as a result of terrorism must take careful account of human and civil rights.

“It must be always on the basis of the highest respect for human rights,” he said.