No apology for bombing deaths

Following the release of thousands of official documents relating to Britain’s deadliest sporting disaster, the deaths of 96 Liverpool football fans at Hillsborough Stadium in 1989, British prime minister David Cameron expressed a profound apology on behalf of his government to the families of those killed (‘Cameron offers apology for Hillsborough cover-up’, Irish Examiner, Sept 12th).

Mr Cameron said the report showed the Hillsborough families had suffered a double injustice, both in the failure of the state to protect their loved ones and the “indefensible wait to get the truth”. Mr Cameron expressed further regret that the injustice had been left uncorrected for so long.

Like all in the civilised world I welcome Mr Cameron’s acknowledgement of the injustice perpetrated against those families who lost loved ones in Hillsborough.

Perhaps Mr Cameron might cease casting a cold eye on the biggest mass-murder in Irish history, the Dublin and Monaghan bombings and the “indefensible wait to get the truth”. Since this atrocity 38 years ago there have been seven British prime ministers and three Joint Oireachtas Committee Reports into the bombings of 1974. Since then the democratic pursuit of justice for the 33 innocent people killed has led to dead ends and cul-de-sacs. Requests from Mr Justice Henry Barron in the Final Report of the Commission of Investigation into these bombings for documentation, which is in the possession of the British government, and which would have been vital in establishing the identity of those responsible for this atrocity, were refused.

Even recent requests from Taoiseach Enda Kenny to Mr Cameron to release these files were refused.

If the British government is to be seen to be consistent and open in her application of standards of justice and fairness, why does it not apply equally the principles of justice to innocent victims in Dublin and Monaghan that it applies to innocent victims in Sheffield?

Tom Cooper

Knocklyon

Dublin 16