State Papers: Ahern told Blair Real IRA not 'overly active' two weeks before Omagh bomb 

The scene in Omagh the morning after the bomb on August 15, 1998, which killed 31 people and injured over 200 others. Picture: Alan Lewis/Photopress Belfast

Former taoiseach Bertie Ahern told then British prime minister Tony Blair two weeks before the Omagh bombing in August 1998 that the Real IRA did not seem to be "overly active".

In a telephone conversation between the two leaders on July 31, the taoiseach shared information on the paramilitary splinter group with the British prime minister.

"Our security people, like yours, I think overstate the position," he said. "But even when we check it out they obviously have somewhere close to a hundred people.

"The quality of them I think are probably, you know, good enough in that they have an awful lot of the wrong people from our point of view but they don't seem to be overly active."

Mr Ahern continues: "There are some of the key people who are hanging around but they're not doing an awful lot and the surveillance is showing that they're not. Now there is a hard core that of course never stop, never has stopped."

The then taoiseach then tells Mr Blair: "As long as it doesn't numerically get too big it means we can keep a good eye on it.

"There's always the worry, of course, that somewhere along the way somebody slips you but I think our guys feel fairly happy that they, you know, they're keeping a handle on it."

Just over two weeks later, 29 people were killed and 220 injured in Omagh in the Real IRA attack.

The bombing was the single greatest loss of life of the Troubles.

The archives also suggest that Mr Ahern overstated a disparity in a sectarian murder count as he and Tony Blair discussed claims police in Northern Ireland were showing double standards when investigating killings, archives have suggested.

A confidential internal Northern Ireland Office memo reveals the issue was raised in talks between the prime minister and taoiseach in February 1998, months prior to the signing of the Good Friday Agreement.

The memo references allegations made by Sinn Féin that the Royal Ulster Constabulary was not doing enough to catch loyalist paramilitary killers.

The note from an official to the private secretary of the then Northern Ireland secretary Mo Mowlam said: "Sinn Féin has been running the line vigorously all week that the police do not do enough to make amenable loyalists who murder Catholics whereas they appear to be able to arrest and charge republicans very speedily."

The memo, that has been released by the Public Records Office of Northern Ireland, went on to outline details of recent murders in the region and who had been responsible for the killings.