Michael Hayes may be quizzed over pub bombings

Self-confessed IRA man Michael Hayes could be questioned by the British authorities in connection with the Birmingham pub bombings, High Court judges have heard.

Two senior judges were also told Dublin-based Hayes may separately be spoken to by lawyers acting for the coroner in the currently suspended inquests into the deaths of the 21 victims.

Hayes previously told a BBC interview he took “collective responsibility” for the organisation’s activities in England, including the pub bombings. He also claimed to have defused a third bomb placed outside Barclays Bank on the city’s Hagley Road, when the scale of the bloodshed on November 21, 1974, became clear.