On behalf of Margaret English, Maura McKeever and the Ludlow family I convey our best wishes for a swift recovery to Senator Walsh. The families have been particularly impressed by his contributions and pertinent questions in earlier hearings.
I am not sure if members have received a copy of the revised submission that I sent the Clerk. I do not propose to go through in detail the various observations made in the submission on behalf of the families as our time would be better used on questions relating, in particular, to the collusion aspect. I might add, as a point of principle, that the families maintain their position that the Dundalk bombing justifies a public inquiry and that there is no distinction, in principle, to be drawn between the kind of inquiry recommended by the Tánaiste in regard to Buchanan and Breen and the position Ireland has adopted in regard to the murder of Pat Finucane. These are important issues that justify a public inquiry. However, we accept the committee has not gone down that route in relation to earlier Barron reports and realise that rehearsing the argument in favour of a public inquiry would not be the best use of time. While we maintain that as a position of principle, we will not address the matter in detail. I will instead speak about the families' particular experience and then move on to the issue of collusion. I ask members, when considering the evidence they have heard during these hearings, to put themselves in the position of Margaret, Maura and their families.
One of the most important issues to emerge from the Barron report was the previously undisclosed information that the authorities had received a credible warning about the bomb either two days or four days before it happened depending on how one reads the report. Members heard Maura and Margaret's distressing evidence of how they were treated at the time, of the failure of the State to engage with them and to keep them informed either on the day of the bombing or subsequently. They made a heartfelt plea that this should not happen to other families. They were entitled to expect that official witnesses appearing before the committee would come before it with hard facts. Instead, members were treated to a series of "it would have happened" or "this would have been done". In fact, the evidence given has made their feeling of utter astonishment at the failure to act on the warning even worse. It is clear that the warning, as people identified, came from within approximately 250 yards of the main church in the centre of Dundalk, practically pinpoint to where the bomb went off. It appears that whatever would have happened would have happened at another part of the town. Nobody went to the bother of establishing where the patrols were supposed to have been, whether the individual gardaí were interviewed or what steps were taken. It is utterly astonishing that evidence was given on a "would have" basis to this committee in relation to a very specific concern identified on behalf of the families and that this has not been addressed. The committee must have regard to this when examining the evidence during its overall assessment of what was happening in the 1970s. It has to date been treated to casual observations, undocumented claims and an astonishing aside last week from one of the witnesses to the effect that one would not expect such information to be on files now because people do not like the freedom of information legislation. Deputy Lynch was rightly outraged in that regard. That is what we are dealing with. We are not talking theoretically about cover-ups in the 1970s we are talking about a culture of secrecy and a grudging handing over of information that pertains to this day. In that context, I would like to address some of the particular concerns on the failure to take steps to prevent the bombing.
Again, from the families' point of view, it is now established a warning was received from the RUC and that it was considered so urgent it had to be communicated first by telephone and then in writing. It appears even to this day that gardaí cannot establish when they received the warning. It is suggested that the warning was received on 15 December and confirmed in writing on 16 December. Yet, as of last week a statement claims it was given on 17 December. We have not been told, despite the fact that the committee has given him every opportunity to give the information, what steps were taken in reliance on that warning. Is there to this day a culture of secrecy and silence, an unwillingness to identify errors in the past? Is this something that could happen again? Failure by this committee to note that failure on the part of the authorities may support or contribute to failures in the future. To suggest that the warning could not be acted upon because it was vague without at the same time indicating whether any efforts were made to firm it up or to get more detail on it, is quite simply an affront to the families. If somebody warns you that something is about to happen but you do not feel there is enough information to prevent it, you ask questions such as "who do you think are plotting it?", "can we have photographs of them?" and, "can we put the Army, the Garda, the Civil Defence, the FCA on alert?" None of this was done. The people responsible do not believe they owe it to this committee to explain that failure. It is astonishing that lives could have been saved if action had been taken. The fact that people do not believe they have to account for this is, unfortunately, an affront to the families who are anxious that their personal concerns be put on record here today. They do not expect the committee to hold a public inquiry into their case only. They are however anxious to address the committee in detail on why there should be an inquiry to address all the questions of the families who have lost people through collusion whether by omission or by commission.
On the investigation, how on earth do two serving members of the Garda Síochána who find themselves in Crumlin Road RUC station to interview someone have that interview process terminated and do nothing about it? If any of us were taken out of our way for a purpose and that purpose was compromised at the last minute we would expect at least that there would be an expression of upset and annoyance. That did not happen. This raises the question — did nothing happen because there was a deliberate but unspoken, unwritten policy not to press on issues of collusion? Is the explanation for all the missing files the fact that nobody wanted this policy to ever come to light or to be acknowledged? Is it credible that somebody says "the reason I didn't report that up the line is I believed C3 was infiltrated by the British spies". Is that really credible? That is what the committee has been offered to consider. I think there can be only one answer to that, namely, that it is not credible. This should be explored in public in the context of whether this State and senior officials of the State condoned or at a minimum were inactive in the face of collusion that was established to them.
Again, it seems an extraordinary state of affairs that agendas of meetings between the RUC and Garda were not provided to Mr. Justice Barron's inquiry team. How can his report be considered complete when this documentation makes references such as "there would have been"? Nobody brought into this committee evidence which illustrated that two civilians lost their lives in Dundalk and that the matter was on the agenda every month as it would have to be. The "would have" culture remains a matter the committee needs to investigate closely. We have identified in the submission 15 specific criticisms of the Garda investigation in this case. They remain matters of concern to the families who are anxious that the committee consider them. As I indicated before, the families' real wish is to move on and to look more closely at the issue of collusion.
The committee received contradictory evidence as to whether there are written records maintained by C3 on the knowledge of the participants in the Glenanne gang. Mr. Corrigan stated he was aware of it. Mr. Justice Barron does not appear to have had the opportunity to establish when he became aware of it or what families have lost people at the hands of that gang on a date after its activities became known to the authorities in the North or the South.
At what level was the information about the Glenanne gang known? If it was known by the ordinary Garda officers on the street in Dundalk that this gang operated and that there were UDR and RUC personnel in it, one of two things happened: was it either recorded in a file or was purposely not recorded in a file. If it was recorded in a file and nothing was done, that is a disgrace. If there was a purpose behind it not being recorded in a file, it is a scandal.
The committee, in the public interest, should recommend that there be an inquiry into the attitude of the authorities here to what they knew to be collusion in the North. If, as Paul O'Connor pointed out earlier on, this information was available at Government level early in the 1970s in the North, and was available to an extent that should be alarming, that 15% of a military force were terrorist criminals, was that information known to the authorities here? Will we ever know that without a public inquiry? I do not think we will.
Mr. Justice Barron has tellingly found as fact that collusion existed and as fact that it was not a case of the rotten apple. This was an organisation rotten to the core but he does not have the resources or the time to examine it. With all due respect, this committee does not have the resources or the time to examine it. In its very first report the committee indicated that this is a matter that should be looked at in the context of an overriding inquiry, North and South, including the Government of the UK, and that remains the position. It cannot allow itself in the discharge of its proper parliamentary function to have a half baked solution, an inquiry that can only go so far because they will say that we did not have the witnesses or the documents and can only draw on inference.
This act of international terrorism justifies an international tribunal to inquire into it. People must be held to account. We have heard over and over again from families that they do not have an expectation of perpetrators individually going to jail but they have a legitimate expectation that states involved in this sort of crime, or in the case of the Irish State, closing their eyes to this sort of crime, will be named and shamed and held to account as an indication that no other State official can hope to conduct himself in this way in the belief that his conduct will be condoned by secrecy or otherwise.
That is the main point the families want to make today. Urgent work must be done to establish that this is a matter of colossal public concern because the committee has sat here and heard the evidence. We know the culture of permanent Government remains not to leave a paper trail and to conduct itself in a way where if a person is ashamed of his conduct, he does not record it. What is freedom of information about if it is not to establish what is going on in permanent Government? Is it enough to tell all the families who have lost people that the security forces wish to protect their sources of information or do not want to admit to the fact there was British state support for terrorist crime? All must be exposed and it is this committee's function to expose it.
I am happy to take any questions members have on the Dundalk bomb but the families are anxious to put this on the broader plane, that there are more families than just the Waters and Rooney families who have lost as a result of the failure on the part of the Irish State to tackle collusion at the time.
