Last submissions to committee on Barron report

Lawyers representing those injured and bereaved by the 1974 Dublin and Monaghan bombings made their final submission yesterday to a Dublin parliamentary committee, which is considering the findings of the Barron Report on the attacks.

The Justice sub-committee has been urged not to allow the Irish government to use lack of British cooperation as an excuse to prevent a public inquiry into allegations of British Crown force collusion.

Speaking after the hearing, the group's solicitor Greg O'Neill said: ``There is a great deal of information already in the public domain and there is also material which isn't in the public domain which could be made available to an inquiry.

``There is also an onus on the state to investigate the shambles of the Gardai investigation into the bombings.''

Mr O'Neill was responding to claims by independent British lawyers Michael Collins SC and Antonio Bueno QC that they remained pessimistic about the chances of the British authorities cooperating with any further inquiry into the atrocity.

It also would be ``morally unacceptable'', he added, for the government to evoke the length of time that had passed as a reason for not holding an inquiry.

In his closing address, counsel Cormac O'Dulachain, said the families were seeking, and the atrocity warranted, a full public tribunal of inquiry.

``In 50 or 60 years there has not been a graver issue in the State that warranted a tribunal than the Dublin Monaghan bombings.''

The legal representatives of two families not linked with the Dublin-based campaign group addressed the committee before the hearings concluded

They warned that some families bereaved by the bombings will take legal action if a public inquiry is not established.

A lawyer for Ed O'Neill, Bernie Bergin and John Bergin argued that the incorporation of the European Convention on Human Rights meant the Dublin government was compelled to order an inquiry.

Meanwhile, the inquests into the deaths of all those killed in the bombings on May 17 1974 is due to open on April 27 in Dublin, less than a month before the 30th anniversary of the atrocity.

Dublin City Coroner Dr Brian Farrell recently revealed that his office was in the process of reading 1,600 statements and was still seeking other information from the PSNI and the Garda.

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