Baron Report - Search for justice set to drag on

FESTERING wounds will be re-opened by the latest chapter of the Baron Report.

Encapsulating one of the bloodiest times of the Troubles, it includes the Miami Showband massacre as well as fatal bombings in Dundalk, Monaghan, south Armagh and Dublin Airport.

But despite repeated calls for a public inquiry into a spate of loyalist killings in the mid-1970s, there seems little likelihood of a full-scale inquiry into those atrocities being ordered by the Government.

In effect, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern has already ruled out an open-ended probe, saying it would be unlikely to produce new information.

While the report now goes before a sub-committee of the Dáil, its scrutiny will not be completed until October. Meanwhile, many of the suspects named in the document have died.

Regrettably, the craving for justice by the families of victims looks set to drag on interminably.