Omagh: Real IRA man's phone records 'should be inadmissable'

Phone records involving a convicted Real IRA member being sued by the families of the Omagh bomb victims should not be used in evidence as it breaches privacy rights, a court heard today.

Counsel for the families want details on calls made and received by Seamus Daly given in evidence in their landmark civil action against five men they accuse of the 1998 atrocity.

But during hearings in Dublin the dissident republican’s barrister Dermot Fee QC objected claiming the records were obtained by the gardai for criminal proceedings and cannot be used in a civil trial.

Daly is being sued by the families for €17.4m along with Michael McKevitt, the alleged leader of the Real IRA, Liam Campbell, said to be his number two, Colm Murphy and Seamus McKenna.

All deny any involvement in the bombing.

“It is a document retained by the guards under the restricted provisions of the Telecommunications Act,” Mr Fee said.

“Is it proper then that they, for the advancement of the plaintiff’s civil case, say we are making that available to you?

“The issue here is a breach of privacy and a breach of rights.”

Brett Lockhart SC, acting for the families, said there was no legal reason for the records not to be used.

Judge Conal Gibbons, who is hearing evidence in the presence of Mr Justice Morgan, who has presided over the case in Belfast Crown Court, asked both parties to put their arguments in writing by the end of the month.

But Lord Brennan QC, acting for the families, said his clients were frustrated over why the procedure was taking so long.

“My clients are listening to it with frank incomprehension,” he said.

Judge Gibbons said he understood the families’ annoyance but that he was doing all in his power to ensure the case moved along speedily.

“I do understand that relatives do find all of this rather baffling at times,” he said.

Daly was sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison in 2004 after pleading guilty to membership of the Real IRA.

The groundbreaking court case is the first time evidence from a Northern Ireland case has been heard in the Republic of Ireland.

Last December, a Belfast judge cleared Sean Hoey, the only man ever charged in direct connection with the car bomb attack, which ripped through the Co Tyrone town killing 29 people including a woman pregnant with twins.

The case continues tomorrow.