O'Donoghue rules out inquiry into 1974 Dublin, Monaghan bombings

the Minister for Justice has rejected calls for an independent inquiry into the 1974 Dublin and Monaghan bombings which killed 33 people. Mr O'Donoghue told the British-Irish Interparliamentary Body at Dromoland, Co Clare, that he had received a request for an inquiry from a committee of victims and relatives of those killed and injured.

"While one cannot have anything but sympathy for those affected, I am unconvinced that the particular form of inquiry sought by the committee would be the right course of action to take."

He said it was important not to overlook the fact that the Garda file on the bombings remained open. "The objective of any Garda investigation is to secure evidence which would be sufficient to bring before the courts those believed to be responsible. That is not something which can be achieved by a tribunal of inquiry.

"While evidence has not been obtained to date on which a prosecution could be based, if any new information should emerge which might bring the culprits to justice, it will be vigorously pursued by the gardai."

Mr O'Donoghue told the Sinn Fein CavanMonaghan TD, Mr Caoimhghin O Caolain, that the bombings were the subject of an intensive Garda investigation. "Those investigations involved extensive interviewing of potential witnesses, forensic examination of the scenes of the explo sions and of items recovered, and contact with the RUC. Confidential information available to the gardai also led the investigation team to examine evidence against a number of loyalist suspects.

"Unfortunately, despite those intensive inquiries, it was not possible to bring charges against any person at that time, due to lack of sufficient evidence to bring the matter to court."

O Caolain's call for an inquiry, the Louth Fine Gael TD Mr Brendan McGahon said it was ironic to hear it coming from Sinn Fein.

Mr O'Donoghue told the Dublin West Fine Gael TD, Mr Austin Currie, that the Government continued to raise with Sinn Fein the recovery of the bodies of those who were thought to have been murdered by paramilitaries.

"The fact that the republican movement has recently requested anyone with information about the location of graves of missing people to contact a member of the movement or the families of the disappeared is a positive development. There are missing persons on both sides of the community, and I again call on all those who have information which might lead to the identification of their whereabouts to come forward."Mr O'Donoghue also said decommissioning was an essential part of the Belfast Agreement. "The Government has stressed the importance of securing decommissioning in both jurisdictions and it wants to see it achieved as quickly as possible."

Mr O'Donoghue, who addressed the group before travelling to the talks in Belfast, said there had been some slippage in the implementation of the agreement.

"This is not exactly surprising in a process as complex as this, where every issue has to be negotiated among half-a-dozen or more parties. Some of that slippage has been due to the difficulty over decommissioning, which has indeed proved difficult to resolve.

"Unfortunately, because it has delayed the establishment of the executive, and thus of the other institutions and the transfer of powers to the Assembly, the disagreement over this one aspect of the agreement has tended to overshadow the strides made in implementing other aspects of the agreement."