Call to release Omagh report as garda cleared

A SECRET Government report on garda intelligence handling at the time of the Omagh bomb must be made public, Labour leader Pat Rabbitte said last night.

Mr Rabbitte called on Justice Minister Michael McDowell to publish the Nally Report into anti-terror operations prior to the 1998 atrocity after a suspended Donegal garda was cleared of corruption.

Detective Sergeant John White from Ballybofey was acquitted yesterday at Letterkenny Circuit Court of three charges of attempting to pervert the course of justice and three of making false statements.

The detective hit the headlines when he claimed a Real IRA informer alerted him before the 1998 attack to a car which was to be used in a bombing.

He said he passed the warning on to a senior officer but it was not conveyed to police in the North.

In August 1998, a car bomb exploded in Omagh town centre, killing 29 people, including a woman pregnant with twins.

The Nally Report probed Det Sgt White’s allegations that gardaí kept vital information on Real IRA bomb attack plans from what was then the RUC.

But in December 2003, Mr McDowell told the Dáil that the Nally Report found no evidence to support any of the officer’s claims. The following February he vowed to make an edited copy public after Det Sgt White’s case had finished.

Mr Rabbitte said in the wake of the case against Sgt White collapsing, due to inconsistencies in evidence, the Nally Report had to be brought in to the open.

“Sgt White has described the prosecution as ‘malicious’ and has called for a probe into the officers - senior-ranking members of the Garda Siochána - who investigated him,” Mr Rabbitte said. “This acquittal has major consequences for public confidence in the integrity of the Garda Siochána in general and the allegations being investigated by the Morris Tribunal in particular.

“It is now time for Minister McDowell to deliver on his earlier commitment and to make public a version of the Nally Report.”

Northern police ombudsman Nuala O’Loan investigated Det Sgt White’s claim, passing her findings on to former Foreign Minister Brian Cowen, which then led to the report.

The courts have still to rule on one other charge against the officer: unlawful possession of a firearm.

Omagh relatives claimed the clearing of Det Sgt White of the corruption charges placed a fresh onus on the Irish Government to release the report.

Michael Gallagher, whose 21-year-old son Aidan died in the Real IRA bomb blast, said they would be seeking a meeting with Mr McDowell to get to the truth once and for all.

“What this verdict effectively does is remove the blanket which has concealed the truth up to now,” Mr Gallagher said.

“We have been denied the right to see this report by the authorities because they have told us the source of these allegations was unreliable and facing charges.

“Following today, he does not look unreliable now. There is, therefore, an onus on the Irish Government to publish the Nally Report.”