Relatives pledge to intensify campaign

Relatives of the victims of the bombings at the centre of Mr Justice Barron's investigations have pledged to intensify their …

Relatives of the victims of the bombings at the centre of Mr Justice Barron's investigations have pledged to intensify their campaign for a public inquiry in light of the report's findings. Joe Humphreys reports.

Mr Greg O'Neill, solicitor for Justice for the Forgotten group, said a public inquiry was the "only way forward", given the evidence of security force collusion in the bombings in 1972 and 1973 in Dublin, Cavan and Donegal.

He said, however, the relatives were also considering taking a case to the European Court of Human Rights in order to force the British government to co-operate with investigations.

Relatives of the 1974 Dublin and Monaghan bombings victims have already announced plans to take a similar case to Strasbourg.

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Mr O'Neill claimed Mr Justice Barron had been "wholly limited by his resources and his lack of powers" in the latest inquiry.

In addition, the judge had set a "very high bar of evidence" in examining allegations of collusion.

"In a sense, it's a false bar of evidence," said Mr O'Neill, who contrasted the judge's position with that of Judge Peter Cory who investigated several controversial killings in Northern Ireland.

Speaking at a press conference in Dublin after the publication of the report, Mr O'Neill said: "Judge Barron appears to have assumed his role and function is to take on and make determinations about whether or not, as a matter of fact, there was collusion within the remit of a very limited private inquiry.

"In a sense, the conclusions he draws can't be treated as judicial conclusions and can only be treated as comment which has to be taken into the context of the limited remit and resources that he had at his disposal."

Ms Susan Stanley, brother of Mr Patrick Stanley, who died in the 1972 bomb blast in Belturbet, Co Cavan, said it was not fair that those responsible for the killings had not been held to account.

"I call on Bertie Ahern and Tony Blair to stand up and be counted and say what has gone wrong.

"Why aren't all these people taken into a room and asked 'Why?', 'What happened?'. . . This is not enough. We want our inquiry. I want to know."

Mr Andrew Douglas, whose brother, Mr Tommy Douglas, was killed in a Dublin bomb blast in January 1973, said the Barron report contained nothing of importance. "What's important is what is not in the report."

Mrs Monica Duffy, whose husband, Mr Tommy Duffy, died in a bomb attack in Dublin in December 1972, asked why investigators had been told to drop the case in 1973.

"As long as I have breath in my body and my husband lies in the grave I am not going to drop this," she said.

Ms Anna Bradshaw, a brother of Mr George Bradshaw, a bus driver killed in the same attack, added: "We are not going to go away. We want justice done. We want the truth."

Mr O'Neill described the British government's non-co-operation with the inquiry as "an outrage", adding "we call upon the Irish Government at the highest level to protest at this failure.

"It is a cause for huge concern that a government of a friendly neighbour would behave in such a completely cavalier and disgraceful manner towards a human rights inquiry carried out into events of more than 30 years ago."