The Cabinet will today formally grant an extension for the completion of the report of the Commission of Investigation into the 1974 Dublin and Monaghan bombings.
The sole member of the commission, Paddy MacEntee SC, has requested an extension until February following the emergence of new information. It is not known what the new information is.
The Commission of Inquiry, which was was established in April of 2005, has already sought six extensions in an effort to get more material from security sources about the bombings. It was the first established under new legislation to fast-track inquiries into matters of public concern as an alternative to time-consuming and expensive judicial tribunals. Thirty-three people died and 300 were injured when four car bombs exploded in Dublin and Monaghan on May 17th, 1974. No organisation claimed responsibility but loyalist paramilitaries were widely blamed.
The terms of reference of the commission were to undertake a thorough investigation and a report on why the Garda investigation was wound down in 1974; why gardaí did not follow up on information that a white van with an English registration was parked outside the Department of Posts and Telegraphs on Portland Row and was later seen parked in the deep sea area of the B&I ferry port in Dublin; and the subsequent contact with a British army officer on a ferry leaving Dublin.
Meanwhile, Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern will raise the findings of the Oireachtas sub-committee report into atrocities on both side of the Border in 1974 and 1975, including the Miami Showband massacre, with Northern Secretary Peter Hain, in advance of the British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference meeting in London today.
Mr Ahern said last night it was essential the British government co-operates fully with investigations into allegations of British collusion in loyalist attacks during the mid-1970s, adding that the Oireachtas reports findings were "deeply troubling" and the issues must be fully investigated.