The relevance of this is that when you gather it all together, you have to come to a conclusion. You cannot consider whether something is addressed without first of all saying, "What is the information?" This is the information emerging from Barron. The next question is, "Does that information address the primary terms of reference?" I cannot answer the question of whether or the degree to which it addresses them without listing the information contained in the Barron report and trying to gather it together into some order so that the submission has some connection to a factual content. The report states that in 1992 and 1993 Dr. Reid confirmed intelligence reports that Robin Jackson and Billy Hanna had been involved but there was no indication whether that intelligence was furnished in 1993 when the Garda commenced its review of the Yorkshire Television programme.
We will now consider Mr. Fred Holroyd. What he tries to portray, and the information he gives, is substantially verified by what he has said. There are elements about his allegations over the years that do not hold up, but the substance of his allegations does. The principal concern arising from Mr. Wallace and Mr. Holroyd is that the British security forces had knowledge of the bombings before they happened and knew the identity of the likely planners and participants. The Barron report does not reach a conclusion on that, but the basis for that allegation by Mr. Wallace is supported by Dr. Reid's intelligence, the facts that emerge and the various connections in Portadown.
The Garda and the RUC had sufficient information by 7 July 1974 to enable a detailed investigation to proceed into the Dublin and Monaghan bombings. The Barron report does not tell us why the Monaghan investigation stopped on 17 July 1974. There is no adequate explanation. When all the facts and the information arising from the bombing were looked at, what was left to do? There were numerous people who could have been lifted for questioning; people in custody could have been questioned; properties could have been raided and searched; there were sufficient pressure points for interrogation and there were leads to follow and connections to be made or discounted from other crimes. There was effectively, in relation to Monaghan alone, a significant tree to shake, and this tree connected to David Alexander Mulholland and into Dublin. It connected to Dublin in relation to allegations of the making and transporting the Dublin bombs. The Monaghan investigation was a critical component of the Dublin investigation. They could not be separated.
We know that as of July 1974, none of the original 15 Monaghan suspects were interviewed, no details of movements of the suspects were obtained, there was no evidence of secondary inquiries and there was no evidence that information from five other incidents were collected and correlated. There would have been forensics and detailed information from other incidents between Fulton and Scotland, between the oil lorry and Moira, between the bombing in the Chalet Bar, between the bombing on the railway track at Portadown and the reference to a search of a bomb factory in a UDA area of Portadown. Other investigative material could have been pulled together. There is no evidence of any detailed request from the Monaghan investigation team.
The fourth paragraph on page 91 of the report states:
In relation to the Monaghan investigation in particular, there was clearly more Garda/RUC cooperation than is apparent from the documentation available. Former Detective Inspector Colin Browne said that he was in contact with the RUC once a week for two months. Former Chief Superintendent Tom Curran has told the Inquiry that names were supplied by the RUC not many days after the bombing. It would seem that these names are the names of those whose photographs were provided. He has also said that he went to Armagh RUC station a number of times to check names which were coming up on Garda enquiries. On one occasion in July 1974, he was instructed to go to Portadown to obtain photographs of all known UVF members in the area. However, he agrees with former D/Inspr Browne that the decision, if any, to ask the RUC to bring any such persons in for questioning was a matter for the senior officers conducting the Dublin investigation.
With regard to Monaghan alone, we represent seven families of seven deceased. Effectively, that paragraph is as far as Barron has got in establishing why the Monaghan investigation stopped. We have no information from this stage of the inquiry, from the Barron process, as to what requests, if any, to conduct any of the matters we have suggested should have been asked for were made. The only impression one gets is that the sole function of visiting the RUC was to collect a name but that there was no other purpose in gathering in that name. We are to believe the Monaghan report was then finalised on 7 July and that none of the officers involved in the Monaghan stage asked for directions or looked for instructions in relation to any further step; that in all these meetings over and back across the Border once a week for two months there was no request to bring in a suspect, to question a suspect, to lift suspects. If we take one area barely ten miles from Monaghan in which there was a cluster of suspects, it was a classic case for a lift and of suspects involved in the fringe of these events in some circumstances.
There is nothing there that indicates in any adequate way or gives any adequate explanation as to why an investigation, which appears to us from the Barron report to have had material to work on, stopped. It confounds us to understand how a report can simply be put into an envelope, delivered through internal Garda mail or posted or brought to Dublin, and that we are left in a situation that the decision, if any, to ask the RUC to bring any such persons in for questioning was a matter for the senior officers.
We know that the Monaghan report, as furnished to the central investigation in Dublin, contains an apology for why we have not got further but within that apology are the very seeds of what should have, been asked to be done. There is no indication at the Monaghan end that they were asked to be done or at the Dublin end that anyone said, "Well, I have read that paragraph, what should we do?" That simply is not a satisfactory explanation five, ten or 30 years later as to why that investigation stopped because, effectively, with the stopping of the Monaghan investigation, the Dublin investigation was over because the leads were significantly there. For that reason, the detail of the Monaghan investigation is important to understanding why we say Barron has not got to the truth of what happened to that investigation.
Let us go on to look at what happened to the 15 suspects who we say were not interviewed. Five were ultimately questioned between 19 and 20 years later - after the broadcasting of the Yorkshire Television documentary. David Alexander Mulholland was interviewed in 1993. We know that the interview went on for two days, and we are told that a garda sat in for one interview session. At this stage, we are asking ourselves what went on. It is a fair question. Was the previous day spent briefing or debriefing David Alexander Mulholland? Was he being interrogated at all? In 1993, when a garda attended the interview of David Alexander Mulholland, we are entitled to know why a garda sat in on only one interview session, and why that was felt to be acceptable by the Garda authorities at the time.
We know in relation to Joseph Stewart Young that Barron raises questions about the method by which he was interviewed - the fact that there was no caution, and that he was told that he was not a suspect - when we can see from the detail of the Mullan investigation that from day one it was not that he was a suspect based on one line of inquiry; it was not that he was a suspect based on one particular piece of intelligence or evidence: he was a suspect because there were numerous connecting factors - numerous leads leading in his direction - and he was told in 1994 that he was not a suspect.
At the interview of Charles Gilmore no garda was present. We know that Robin Jackson, The Jackal, was questioned in 1993. He was the only surviving suspect of the four additional persons named by Yorkshire Television. Billy Hanna, Harris Boyle and Robert McConnell were dead. In relation to what I have called "the cluster of suspects" living not more than ten miles from Monaghan, we know that they were never interviewed. We do not know whether they were alive in 1993 to be interviewed but we know that there was no review as to which suspects were still available.
In relation to those interviews, we do not know the level of preparation, the lines of questioning, or whether transcripts or notes were kept. There is insufficient information relating to those interviews for us to form a view as to whether it was a genuine exercise.
In relation to the allegations made by John Weir in 1999, the Barron report deals with them in detail. I do not want to revisit them - the committee has the report - but there is one final line in the Barron report where Barron states: "The inquiry agrees with the view of An Garda Síochána that Weir's allegations regarding the Dublin and Monaghan bombings must be treated with the utmost seriousness".
That is an invitation to a further process of investigation. It is not an invitation to say our investigation of Weir's revelations or statements is at a conclusion. The only process that we are aware of at this stage by which that can be furthered is by a public process of investigation.
Let us turn to the Dublin investigation. We focused significantly on the Monaghan one today because over the last many years the focus has primarily been on the Dublin investigation as if the seeds of what did or did not happen, in terms of the criminal investigation, arose in Dublin but it is very clear that there are huge questions about the Monaghan investigation.
The evidence available to the Garda in Dublin by the morning of 18 May was that the three bomb vehicles in Dublin had been stolen from Belfast on the morning of 17 May, and that the Monaghan car had been stolen from Portadown that afternoon. By Monday, 20 May, the structure of the Garda investigation was in place, and some key tasks had been completed. I do not think there is anyone who would engage in criticism about the Garda actions on 17, 18 or 19 May. With the enormity of the events that had occurred, no one was going to approach a Garda force responding to a range of explosions happening within the capital city, with suspect vehicles in various other locations, and a bomb exploding in Monaghan and subject the steps taken at that stage to a very intensive analysis or criticism.
However, what is of interest is what occurs in the weeks following, when there should be time for reflection and for someone to take charge of the direction and guidance of the investigation. Our concerns relate to the direction and guidance of the investigation. We know that the investigation knew where the cars had come from, that by the Monday morning forensic collection had taken place, and that the Army had carried out assessments on the bomb sites. We also know that no one had been detained by the Monday morning, so the prospects of detaining anyone within the State must have been remote at that stage. We know that several eye witnesses had come forward. There is no record of any formal request to have the owners of those stolen vehicles interviewed in the presence of the Garda or to have them interrogated by the RUC. It is clear that, in the case of the Parnell Street and South Leinster Street bombs, the car owners would have had information that might have identified the persons who stole the vehicles. What happened in Belfast was the starting point of the investigation. It is clear from the details of the statements made by the owners of those vehicles that there are significant gaps that should have been revisited and scrutinised. There is no record of any formal request for a detailed investigation into their backgrounds or known associates.
As the investigation progresses, we know that, regarding the Parnell Street car bomb, a witness came forward claiming to have seen the vehicle in Ballybrittas on 15 May. There is no sense, and no evidence emerges, that the Garda revisited the RUC regarding the owner of that car and asked where the person and their vehicle had been on 15 May. It appears that some inquiries were conducted regarding the owner of that car, since there is a statement from an insurance agent who visited. However, it does not appear that discrepancies arising from that statement were acted on. It appears that it took six months for the RUC to communicate the statement itself from the insurance agent to the Garda.
We know from the Barron report that by August 1974 the Garda had a list of five names from Belfast of suspects in the bombing. All of those were intelligence-based. We do not know when during the investigation those five names emerged. We do not know whether it was in the first, second or third week. However, we know that the chief superintendent of the special detective unit received information on people referred to as suspects A, B and C. The source is not identified, and we know that Inspector William Kelly received information from the RUC regarding William Marchant and suspect D, who was referred to as a reputed explosives expert. We know that, by 1 June 1974, Army intelligence was aware that unnamed Belfast suspects had been held under temporary detention since 26 May. It was also told that the gang had stayed overnight in Dublin and returned north the next day. We know that G2 sought more information, but no reply is recorded.
Colin Wallace claims that, from early on, Marchant's name was being circulated. In June, on a date that we are not given, the Garda asked the RUC to make inquiries about Marchant. By 15 July, we know that the Garda had all five Belfast names together, with some limited information on them. That is apparent from a letter of the RUC of 15 July. A reply came from RUC special branch on 23 July with specific information on Marchant that he had been a guest of the special branch and CID with negative results and referred to another suspect, saying that he had an alibi. The Garda report on the bombings is dated 8 August 1974. A detailed reply is not recieved until December 1974.
We start off with five suspects in Belfast, all intelligence-based. Suspect A is not traced, but someone with a similar surname who has an alibi is interviewed. Suspect B is not traced. Suspect C, a known loyalist of that name, was interviewed. Suspect D, when interviewed, said that he had not been involved. We do not know who carried out the interviews or where, and we have no evidence of what was put to the suspects. We do not know the value of the alibi given by suspect A, and we do not know if the proper identity of suspect A was clarified. We do not know what further efforts were made to trace suspect B. We do not know if the connections between the Belfast suspects, or indeed the Portadown suspects, and the car owners were explored.
In terms of the overall investigation, the Dublin investigation had most interest in pursuing the Belfast suspects, yet nowhere, in August 1974, was there any sense that there was a focus on these five individuals in terms of trying to identify any further information about them other than that they existed as five names. After December 1974 no further effort was ever made to trace or interview any of these five Belfast suspects and no new intelligence was ever gathered on them. It also appears that no one reconsidered whether there was any basis to the Belfast lists at all, whether this list of five was an entire fiction. We simply know that, in relation to the bombings in Talbot Street, Parnell Street and South Leinster Street, we are left with five suspects and no detail, no investigation, no reinterviewing, no request to interview and no sense of any intensive focus on that aspect of the investigation.
We do not know from Barron. Knowing that information, knowing the criticisms inherent in Barron, we have no idea from the Barron report as to why no thought was applied to the purpose and objective of interviewing suspects or informants or why there was no preparation for interviews. We do not know what arrangements were made, or tried to be made, for attending interviews or requesting notes of interviews. Simply no structure emerges. No explanation for that emerges from the Barron report, except a superficial one in so far as Barron says, "Well, it wasn't done" but that is not a finding, that is not an assessment. That is a self-evident truism - if something is not done, it is not done. What we are interested in, and what the relatives want to find out, is: why was it not done? Who decided not to do it and for what reason did they so decide? If they did decide to do it, were their intentions countermanded or were they instructed not to?
In respect of the investigations into the Dublin and Monaghan bombings, it appears to us - again, we are dependent on the Barron report for this - that the RUC response was co-ordinated and controlled by RUC Special Branch. If that is the case, that raises huge concerns in relation to the entire management of this investigation if RUC Special Branch was at the centre of this investigation.
We see references in the Barron report to correspondence to the senior constable, who is head of RUC Special Branch, on the central co-ordinating committee in terms of intelligence. We know that the head of RUC Special Branch sat on that committee. We know what is referred to as "Craig's people" sat on that committee, so if Craig and Irish Army intelligence had information on primary suspects, the head of RUC Special Branch had that information and did not pass it on to Dublin.
In so far as the RUC co-operated with the Dublin investigation, or through Dublin headquarters, we are left with the clear impression that there was a puppet on a string. That names were being fed in but, effectively, names were being kept back. The genuineness of those five Belfast names must be seriously in doubt. Those names were never ever pursued. At any other stage when the matter arose, no one said, "Where are those five people now? Can we locate them? Can we find them?"
As we look back at the Monaghan report we find that at least within the Monaghan division of the Garda when intelligence arose from contacts back and forth across the Border the information about a farmer in Keady in 1976 and 1979 entered the system but there is no sense in relation to Dublin that Dublin was pro-active from 1974 in pursuing any line of inquiry in terms of monitoring and continuing. We are not clear in relation to information received from the RUC and to other events whether that was managed through the RUC Special Branch. Members will appreciate the shorthand; from reading the report, they will know that the incidents refer to the lorry at Carrickannan, the Hertz van, the Anglia and such matters. It is not apparent whether any inquires were made to the RUC regarding the man at the Four Courts Hotel. What emerges in the initial Garda investigation is a matter of considerable concern in relation to leads, for which again there is no response. The Barron report highlights the fact that the senior gardaí are no longer alive. However, that does not prevent the jigsaw being put together and for that reason we say that these matters are still amenable to investigation.
In relation to trying to put together a jigsaw, obviously there are people who are not able to assist any further inquiry, but there were people who would have played a part in events in that inquiry who are still alive and who may have very useful information or insights that need to be tested. However, in terms of the leads, including the Hertz van, a garda being able to establish the day beforehand, with certainty, the vehicle and its make and accurately record its registration number, and counter-information from the RUC, the matter parked. There were two conflicting sets of facts and the issue was parked, with the Four Courts Hotel suspect simply disappearing to re-emerge suddenly, out of the fog, as a witness in the Catherine Nevin trial. This was someone to whom gardaí really wanted to talk. They may have been able to deal with the lead. It may have had no basis whatsoever, but where had this witness been lost for all those years that he could not be located?
We have the extraordinary Portland Row-Dublin docks-British military officer story about a van that gave rise to a suspicion. A public servant rang gardaí during 17 May on two occasions to say that there was a suspicious van outside the Department of Posts and Telegraphs in Portland Row. It evoked no great sense of urgency, but ultimately that night it led to a further call and to that witness being brought down to the docks to identify the van, which had English number plates and which at some time, then or later, emerged to be false plates. So there was a van with false plates down at the Dublin docks, in the back of which was a British military officer's uniform. We are then told that a British military officer was taken off the boat and that weapons were found on his person, but that is it. There it ends. There is no other detail; there is no information.
The Barron report states that there is no information about it at all on the Garda file. It exists on the files of military intelligence, but there is nothing in the Garda files about it. However, the Garda were involved in all of that at the Dublin docks - on the day of the bombing, on the night of the bombing, after the bombings and after the alerts had gone up. There are so many questions about that incident in itself that have yet to be answered and explored.
There are other incidents that we have listed that have simply not been brought to a close. Someone was given the task of pursuing some of those questions, and we have no doubt that those who were tasked did that and came back with a reply. However, the question is, having come back with information, what were they not then asked to do? It does not emerge at all.
In regard to the Dublin investigation, the Barron report confirms a collapse in that investigation, including the management of forensics, the use of photographs, the failure to record who identified what photographs and who appeared in a particular photograph and photo-fits. There is a reference to the Monaghan number plate finger print but to this date we do not know whether that finger print still exists or if the original finger print is still in Garda possession. The strategy of interviewing suspects, the recording and storing of evidence, the investigation of leads, the tracing and location of suspects and the long-term preservation of a case file that is still supposedly open - all of this leads us to feel that there are huge questions still to be asked about how such an investigation collapsed. The Barron report presents a picture of a collapse, and, if I may offer an analogy, if this was a collapsed building we would want to know whether the architect, the engineers, the builders or the suppliers of the materials were responsible. All that the Barron report does - it is done very well - is to bring us to the collapse but it does not present an investigation as to how, why and who caused it. The committee cannot walk away from that.
Lieutenant Colonel Nigel Wylde is present and we might take his document up shortly in such way as the committee might wish. He deals very significantly with a critical issue - the forensics of the day and what can be made of the explosives that were used. Regarding the political response, our initial reaction to the question as to whether the Barron report addresses the political response is that it does not do so. There is nothing in the report about the political response. It is the shortest part of the report. It is as if nothing exists to report on. That is the impression one obtains from the report.
There is the question of information passed on to the Government at various meetings and there is a huge issue about files within the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform gone missing and the counterparts of those files not being in Garda records. Let me indicate the way in which that simply cannot be so. The issue did arise in public fora. It arose on two occasions in 1975 in the Dáil when questions were put and information was given. I am sure that committee members, as parliamentarians, will know that a ministerial reply to a Dáil question invariably gives rise to a ministerial briefing paper. On two occasions in 1975 this issue was raised in circumstances that we believe would have caused the preparation of a ministerial reply.
If I might indicate the replies that were given in 1975 by way of political answers to the Dáil. It appears that Deputy Davern asked questions and that Mr. Fitzpatrick - I am not sure whether he was Parliamentary Secretary in the Department of Justice - gave the answers on behalf of the Minister for Justice. He stated: "I am informed by the Commissioner of the Garda Síochána that Garda investigations of these outrages continue." Was that a fair statement in May 1975 given the content of the Barron report?