The resumption of the Omagh Bombing Inquiry has been postponed for six months due to a delay caused, in part, by the “state of disclosure of material from the Republic of Ireland”, the lead counsel to the inquiry has said.
Delivering an update at a daylong procedural hearing of the inquiry in Belfast on Thursday, Paul Greaney said the opening of chapter three, which had been scheduled to begin earlier this month, had been postponed until September 21st.
“One of the reasons, but we stress, not the only reason, for adjourning the March 9th date was due to material originating from the Republic of Ireland not being available,” the barrister said.
“Material expected from An Garda Síochána would not be disclosed to the inquiry, processed and/or provided to core participants in time for that start date [in March].”
READ MORE
Such is the volume of material that, although disclosure will take place on a “rolling basis”, it is not expected to be completed until June, the barrister said.
He said the inquiry legal team was “acutely aware” of how “disappointing” the delay would be for many people, but a start date earlier than September was “simply not feasible”.
A total of 31 people, including unborn twins, died and hundreds were injured when a car bomb planted by the dissident republican group the Real IRA exploded in the centre of Omagh, Co Tyrone, on August 15th, 1998.
The inquiry into the atrocity, which opened in 2024 and heard its first evidence last year, was ordered by the UK government to examine whether the atrocity could reasonably have been prevented by British state authorities
Chapter three, which is expected to last four weeks, will examine how the Omagh bombing was carried out and who was responsible.
A “significant statement” prepared by the Police Service of Northern Ireland has recently been disclosed to core participants which “identifies those suspected of participation in the Omagh bombing [and] some of the evidential basis for that suspicion”, Greaney said.
Continuing his update, the barrister said the inquiry has “received a very significant quantity of [Garda] material from the Government of Ireland” with “in excess of 20,000 pages” already disclosed.
While the disclosure process was at an “early stage”, the legal team had been “struck by the constructive, positive sentiments that have been expressed” and which have now received “very substantial support from the product the inquiry has already received from the Government of Ireland”.
Greaney said the inquiry’s experience thus far “is that those we are dealing with in the [Garda] are responsive to our communications and have kept the necessary deadlines required for the efficient processing of this material”.
However, he added that “inevitably” there were matters that required “ironing out”, including access to sensitive material, and while there was “still undoubtedly a long way to go with the completion of disclosure” of Garda material it was “appropriate … that we acknowledge” the “considerable” efforts and “effective” progress made by the Irish Government.
The inquiry was continuing to work with the Government regarding the disclosure of other State materials, he said.
In total, Greaney said the inquiry currently held “approaching 450,000 pages of open disclosure” and 18 “tranches” of documents comprising more than 100,000 pages had been disclosed to core participants.
