A chara, - Twenty two years ago the biggest single massacre in the history of the State took place. Twenty two years later nobody has been charged for the Dublin/Monaghan bombings, in which 33 people died and 300 were injured.
There are so many questions that remain unanswered about what happened on that tragic day that I could fill a whole page of your newspaper listing them and still have more to ask. Some of the most important questions are: If loyalist paramilitaries were responsible for the bombings how did they gain access to the sophisticated timing devices which meant that the three Dublin bombs detonated within 90 seconds of each other? Military experts have argued that the paramilitaries had relatively primitive equipment at that time and would have been incapable of such a professional operation without help from others. Who helped them?
Are the numerous accusations of British army involvement in the operation - including some accusations by key intelligence officers at the time accurate?
Over one and half hours after the capital city had been torn apart, it was still possible for more bombers to cross the Border into Monaghan town and detonate another bomb, killing another seven people. Considering the carnage that had taken place in Dublin, why had the Garda not by that time set up a roadblock along the Border? Why have the Government Ministers at that time been extremely unwilling to comment publicly on the matter? Why has no Government seen fit to reopen the investigations in an effort to answer the many outstanding questions and to devise ways of preventing such an atrocity in the future? Why has there never been a full public sworn inquiry on the bombings?
The families of the victims of the Dublin/Monaghan bombings have been largely forgotten about. For the past 22 years ordinary citizens have taken it on themselves to organise memorial events; the State has given little recognition to the suffering which these people have had to endure.
The relatives of the victims have waited 22 years for the truth about what really happened. How much longer must they wait?
Why has the single biggest massacre in the history of the State been swept under the carpet? - Le gach dea ghui,
Vice President of the Greens in the European Parliament,
Offices of the European Parliament,
Molesworth Street,
Dublin 2.