The Omagh bomb was the deadliest atrocity of the Troubles in the North of Ireland. It was second only to the Dublin and Monaghan bombings, which killed more people in the seventies. On 15 August 1998 the Real IRA, a group opposed to the IRA ceasefire and to the Good Friday Agreement, killed 31 people, including two unborn children, and injured 220 others. Confused telephone warnings were made which did not specify the location of the bomb, and the police mistakenly moved people towards its location. The Real IRA denied that the bomb was intended to kill civilians and apologised, but this has to be one of the most damning and reckless actions ever to have taken place during the Troubles. The victims included people of all ages and backgrounds. Catholics, Protestants, Spanish tourists, southerners, women and children, nationalists and unionists were all killed on that day. In 2013 a legal case started to try to understand if it was possible for the security forces to have prevented the Omagh bomb. Five years ago, in 2021, Mr. Justice Mark Horner at the Belfast High Court stated that there was a "real prospect" that the 1998 Omagh bomb could have been prevented by the security forces. That is an earth-shattering sentence for a judge to say. The idea that a corporate decision was possibly made by the British security forces to allow the bomb to proceed is deeply shocking. Did the British security service prioritise the protecting of informants over the protecting of citizens? Was there a failure to connect intelligence? Were there political reasons for not stopping the bomb going ahead? It is also incredible that the wheels of justice are so slow in grinding forward. It has been 28 years since that bomb ripped through Omagh. I remember that in 2021 Micheál Martin said he would consider if the South could facilitate information being disclosed and evidence being taken in the South of Ireland. That is five years ago. It has been five years since the Taoiseach made that statement, and it has taken that time to get the necessary legislation in front of us. I welcome this Bill and the Minister's role in making it happen, but it has taken an age for it to happen. The Bill allows for oral testimony to be taken before the Irish courts for the purpose of the Omagh bombing inquiry. It allows a specific legal mechanism to facilitate the taking of sworn testimony from State bodies and former ministerial officeholders before a judge in the High Court. It is modelled on the Criminal Justice (International Co-operation) Act 2019, which allowed oral testimony to be heard for the purposes of Troubles-related inquests outside of the State. Family members and survivors and their legal representatives will be allowed to attend as regards the evidence given before a High Court judge, and the Bill will allow for counsel to the inquiry to ask questions to clarify evidence given by a witness to the judge. There is a bigger truth we need to focus on as well, welcome and all as this Bill is. We need to focus on the bigger issue of the unresolved investigations where families are searching for truth and justice and have been refused them for many years. We have to look at how we can resolve this on this side of the Border. For years and years the British Government has refused to tell the truth, refused to give evidence, protected informants, protected collusion and refused to let information be known about what happened under its authority. However, we should not let that paralyse us in terms of the actions we need to take in this State. We need to create structures ourselves for all-Ireland investigations and public inquiries. Atrocities and wrongdoings do not recognise the Border; they need an all-Ireland approach. The Border is actually a competitive advantage for the perpetrators of these killings. In 2023 Aontú introduced the Commission of Investigation (Collusion of British State Forces) Bill to provide for public inquiries into collusion between British state forces and other groups and individuals between 1968 and 1998. It passed First Stage in the Dáil. If the Bill were to pass all Stages, it would see an inquiry constituted in this State to investigate the British state either where it committed murder or if it assisted in the committing of murder or prevented prosecution in certain serious offences in Ireland, North and South. Interestingly, in that same year, 2023, the former Minister for justice Charlie Flanagan commented in relation to the Omagh bombing that the Republic should have a parallel inquiry into that atrocity and that the public need to be able to see vital evidence held in this State given over to allow for the truth to be known. Victims and survivors are entitled to know who did what and who was responsible for what. If this Aontú Bill were to pass, it would institute an investigation into what happened. We know that the British state forces had a role in so many killings and so much loss of life in Ireland, North and South, and many of those cases were covered up. They were covered up at the time but the British state distanced itself from that cover-up. The recent legacy Bill is the son and heir of that cover-up and, in fact, the British have their fingerprints all over that Bill. The new iteration of that Bill is extremely problematic as well because it still allows for the British Secretary of State for the North of Ireland to prevent the holding of investigations and inquiries. The Secretary of State for the North of Ireland has previous on this. He has fought the family of Sean Brown in all the courts of the land in Britain to prevent them from having a proper investigation into the murder of their father. It is incumbent on this Government that it does not allow the British to pass a law whereby a politician determines whether an investigation can be had. The Minister or I should not have an opportunity for an investigation concerning ourselves be determined by a politician. It should be determined by the Judiciary and the Judiciary alone. There are many ways we can allow for evidence to be taken and heard abroad and documents that have already been used by the Police Ombudsman in the North of Ireland or many of the different investigative tools in the North of Ireland to be used in an investigation into the South in order that we can bring forward truth and justice to the families that need them. It is beyond time the Government started to institute that process in this jurisdiction. The Government has gone some way in doing that in this Bill to allow for information to be collected here for an inquiry in the North of Ireland, but the opposite can be done as well to make sure we get to the truth. That truth is needed. So many families have now waited 50 years since the killing of their loved ones while the immediate family - their mothers and fathers or even their brothers and sisters - have passed away, with the fight for justice in the hands of grandsons, granddaughters, nephews and nieces. This Government has an opportunity to draw a line under that and make sure there is access to justice. I urge the Government to take that opportunity.

Sentiment score: 0.04