Former Justice Minister attacks Barron Report

FORMER Justice Minister Patrick Cooney wants a public inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the Dublin and Monaghan bombings because he believes his reputation has been “impugned unjustly” by Mr Justice Henry Barron’s report on the atrocities.

But Mr Cooney, Justice Minister at the time of the May 1974 bombings, argued that any public inquiry will meet the same obstacles as Mr Justice Barron, including the absence, through death, of senior gardaí who were involved in the investigation.

In a scathing attack on the Barron Report, Mr Cooney told a Joint Oireachtas sub-committee: “Inferences and conclusions drawn from unidentified witnesses and from hearsay are not worth the paper they are written on.”