State abandons victims’ families

SOMETHING is rotten in the state of Ireland. It is now almost 30 years since 33 innocent people were savagely murdered and scores mutilated in the single biggest act of carnage committed in the course of the Troubles.

Incredibly, only last week has the inquest into their deaths, inexplicably and abruptly suspended in 1974, been reopened.

Why has the Irish State and successive governments of all shades ignored and indeed compounded the suffering of the victims and their families? They only desire answers about why their loved ones died.

Why have they covered up the facts? Why has the garda investigation been so poor and inept? What is there to hide?

The great and the good of Irish politics have all had this issue on their watch. At the time it was Fine Gael’s Liam Cosgrave with Garret FitzGerald and Conor Cruise O’Brien in cabinet.

Then Jack Lynch and Dessie O’Malley. Charlie Haughey followed. He and O’Malley (again) and Mary Harney. John Bruton and Bertie Ahern (in whose constituency the main atrocity took place). The list goes on.

Collectively and cynically they have treated the victims’ families in the words of Frank Massey (Anna Massey’s father) ‘like lepers’.

Like the patsies of the Arms Trial, the murdered of Bloody Sunday, the framed of Birmingham and elsewhere, the Irish state and its agents have made the innocent guilty. Why?

Everyone knows that the British military were involved in the bombings. The extent of collusion by forces in the Irish security apparatus and their political masters remains unknown. The implications for this country are grave.

The evildoers and their protectors will be exposed. It is time that all who have any knowledge of this tragic and sordid affair do the honourable thing and come clean.

History will judge you better. The can of worms is opening. Time is running out. You have nowhere to hide.

MacDara Blaney,

Binn Eadair,

Baile Átha Cliath