Lebanon deaths - Two decades in search of the truth

Relatives of Corporal Fintan Heneghan, Private Mannix Armstrong, and Private Thomas Walsh have finally, after more than 22 years, received apologies on behalf of the Army from Lieutenant General Seán McCann, the Chief of Defence Forces, and on behalf of the state from Alan Shatter, the Minister for Justice.

The apologies were in relation to the deaths of the three Irish soldiers while serving as peacekeepers with the United Nations in the Lebanon on March 21, 1989.

The three soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb, and their families have long argued that they died needlessly. One family had to go to court in search of justice.

It was only as a court defence was being prepared that it came out that the Defence Forces had been warned of the great threat. The families had been contending that the soldiers had been endangered, because no search for land mines had been conducted on the day of the explosion.

The men had been sent to a dirt road near the village of Brashit to collect stones to build a defence perimeter around an Irish post.

A military board of inquiry in 1989 glossed over the mistake and suppressed it.

This prompted the wrath of fellow soldiers, who essentially encouraged the bereaved families to pursue the truth.

This became a duty to their loved ones. Fatal mistakes should be investigated and aired properly, not so much to detect the incompetence of those who may have made the errors but, more importantly, to learn from what happened so it is not repeated.

After Irish forces were withdrawn from the Lebanon in 2001, RTÉ aired Brothers in Arms, a documentary recalling the incidents in which Irish soldiers died in land mine explosions.

Half of that programme was devoted to the Brashit incident.

The commandant who was interviewed in relation to Brashit suggested that scouting teams carried out land mine sweeps each morning. Of course, this should have been done.

An inquiry ordered by then-minister for defence Michael Smith in 2003 came up with the same version as the earlier inquiry, but now we know the truth.

No bereaved family should be put through such a harrowing process to get to the truth.

Serious questions should now be asked about the two separate reports, which were gross distortions that added serious insult to the anguish of families who had already suffered such tragedy.

Unfortunately, such reports and inquiries are not new in the army.

They got back to the Civil War, when the Army covered up a series of outrages it committed in Co Kerry.

How can the Irish people have confidence in the army to defend them, when it exhibits such incompetence in defending its own?

What happened at Brashit can be attributed to army incompetence, but what happened afterwards was the direct result of insufferable arrogance and contemptible stupidity on the part of the army brass. This should not be tolerated.