logo
Omagh Bombing Inqury: Survivors and families seek representation at closed hearings

Omagh Bombing Inqury: Survivors and families seek representation at closed hearings

Irish Times3 days ago
Survivors and families of those killed in the
Omagh bomb
have asked to be represented by a special advocate in closed hearings at the public inquiry.
Omagh bombing Inquiry
chairman Lord Turnbull is hearing arguments around various applications during dedicated hearings this week.
Paul Greaney KC, counsel to the inquiry, which is examining whether the 1998 dissident republican bomb attack could have been prevented, said it will hear some sensitive security evidence in closed hearings.
A total of 31 people, including unborn twins, died and hundreds were injured when a car bomb planted by the dissident republican group the Real IRA exploded in the centre of the
Co Tyrone
town on August 15th, 1998.
Speaking during hearings in
Belfast
on Monday, Mr Greaney said the inquiry's legal team recognises that survivors and the bereaved have spent 25 seeking the truth.
He said some may be 'suspicious or even cynical of the UK state's willingness to engage in a way that is straightforward and wholehearted with this inquiry'.
'We acknowledge too, that the idea of evidence being heard in circumstances in which the families and survivors will be excluded is one that they will find difficult to accept, to say the least, and accordingly, we regard it as entirely understandable that some, although not all, have suggested special advocates should be appointed to represent their interests in any closed hearings, and have made applications for that to occur,' he said.
Mr Greaney last month said the inquiry would not begin examining the atrocity itself until next year due to the 'pace of disclosure'.
He said chapter three of the inquiry, which 'will consider the bombing itself', would commence in March of next year.
The inquiry, which opened last year, was ordered by the UK government in the wake of a court judgment to examine whether the atrocity could reasonably have been prevented by British state authorities.
During a four-week sitting in the Strule Arts Centre in Omagh earlier this year, the inquiry heard emotional testimony from bereaved relatives who delivered pen portraits of their loved ones, as well as from the injured and first responders. – PA
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Don't expect votes for 16-year-olds to change the world. It's the 25-35s who are the rebels
Don't expect votes for 16-year-olds to change the world. It's the 25-35s who are the rebels

Irish Times

time4 hours ago

  • Irish Times

Don't expect votes for 16-year-olds to change the world. It's the 25-35s who are the rebels

The UK government has confirmed it will deliver its manifesto pledge to lower the voting age to 16 before the next general election, due in 2029. It intends this to apply to all types of elections across the UK, including Assembly and council contests in Northern Ireland . Naturally, the first question this has raised is how it will affect the balance between unionism and nationalism. The presumption is that nationalism will benefit due to the younger age profile of the Catholic population. This explains a sharp orange-green split on the issue: in an opinion poll last year, 70 per cent of nationalists supported votes at 16 compared with 6 per cent of unionists. The consensus among experts is that while nationalism will gain, the electoral impact will be negligible, amounting to less than a 1 per cent advantage. That does imperil two marginal DUP Westminster seats, but it looks trivial in terms of Assembly and council elections, which are held under proportional representation in Northern Ireland, rather than Westminster's first-past-the-post system. READ MORE Rather than fretting over tribal headcounts, perhaps unionists should be more concerned about the remarkable incuriosity towards Britain this story reveals. Scotland has had votes at 16 since its 2014 independence referendum, extended shortly afterwards to council and Scottish parliament elections. Wales reduced the voting age to 16 for assembly elections in 2021 and council elections the following year. These changes have generated a wealth of evidence, research and debate, with specific relevance to devolution, yet Northern Ireland appears completely oblivious to it. Devolution was meant to foster engagement between the constituent parts of the UK. Votes at 16 is a striking illustration of how the regions have instead become wrapped up in their own little worlds. [ Should 16-year-olds have the right to vote? A political scientist and a youth leader debate Opens in new window ] There ought to be particular fascination with the Scottish independence referendum, the first time 16- and 17-year-olds could vote in the UK. Contrary to almost everyone's expectations, they backed the union by a similar percentage to the electorate overall. The outliers were people aged 25 to 35, who exhibited by far the strongest backing for independence. Had unionists and nationalists in Northern Ireland paid this the slightest notice, their hopes and fears over lowering the voting age might not be so pronounced. The clearest finding from research on Scotland, Wales and other countries with voting at 16 is that it boosts long-term participation in elections. A person enfranchised at that age is more likely to continue voting as they get older than would otherwise have been the case. The second-clearest finding is that this makes no long-term difference to how they vote or their interest in politics. As they get older, their voting patterns and political activity are exactly as would always have been expected given their socio-economic background. The rebelliousness of 25- to 35-year-olds in the Scottish independence referendum was repeated across the UK in the 2019 general election. Photograph: Richard Baker/Because few places had voting at 16 until a decade ago, there is only evidence for its long-term effects up to the age of about 30. Some of that evidence suggests the effect fades with time. Nevertheless, it raises total participation and this has a simple explanation: 16- and 17-year-olds are generally in the care of adults who will assist and cajole them into the habit of voting. By contrast, the few years of flux from 18 onwards are the worst time to acquire civic duties. Merely maintaining a registered address can be a challenge. The importance of family explains why young first-time voters can be surprisingly conservative. They are influenced by their parents, although there is some evidence parents are influenced in turn, especially on issues where teenagers and adults tend to disagree, such as immigration or climate change. The image of a nuclear family discussing politics around the dinner table is a cliche that will infuriate the left, which ironically helps explain why the left is not as popular as it believes. All this points to business as usual in Northern Ireland, where politics is largely seen to be hereditary. The rebelliousness of 25- to 35-year-olds in the Scottish independence referendum was repeated across the UK in the 2019 general election, when that age group backed Labour under Jeremy Corbyn far more than the younger voters he was predicted to win over. It turns out that what radicalises voters is not youth but the struggles of settling down. The implication for Northern Ireland is that relatively affordable housing may be more crucial to the union than appreciated. Voting at 16 has focused attention in Scotland and Wales on better civic education in the classroom. This can cause contention and be a lose-lose situation, with schools accused either of not doing enough or of propagandising. Northern Ireland's divided education system will have to handle this with care. It could look to Scotland and Wales for models and warnings. But first, it will have to remember the other devolved regions exist.

Whether the abuse happens in Rathfarnham or west Belfast, the story is the same
Whether the abuse happens in Rathfarnham or west Belfast, the story is the same

Irish Times

timea day ago

  • Irish Times

Whether the abuse happens in Rathfarnham or west Belfast, the story is the same

Last weekend Máiría Cahill left a Belfast hospital bed and drove four hours to speak in the Galway Arts Festival 's First Thought series. As her interviewer, I expected moderate audience interest. It's been 15 years since she first went public in the Sunday Tribune about her alleged rape and abuse as a 16-year-old child by an IRA member and the heinous IRA 'investigation' which forced her to confront her abuser. Eleven years since a pivotal Spotlight BBC documentary on her case. Ten years since the former DPP for England and Wales, Keir Starmer, was asked to review the case and said he was sorry the Public Prosecution Service had let her down, soon followed by the NI Chief Constable's public apology to her and the other two victims after a shambolic trial. Seven years since the Northern Ireland Police Ombudsman revealed how as far back as 2000 CID and Special Branch had intelligence that her alleged abuser, Martin Morris - who had denied all wrongdoing - was abusing children and the IRA were investigating it. READ MORE Two years almost, since her book, Rough Beast: My Story and the Reality of Sinn Féin – described as 'shocking, important and unputdownable' by Roddy Doyle – was published. Yet such was the power of her quiet, measured, devastating delivery to a packed theatre on Saturday that the audience, visibly stunned, rose at the end to give her a thunderous standing ovation. To any other speaker, that visceral response would have been energising, but backstage she was drained to the point of speechlessness. It was a telling insight into the price that abuse victims continue to pay. Part of what continues to make her story so compelling after all this time, of course, is the involvement in that so-called 'investigation' of people with high status in the national political mainstream since that smart, funny 16-year-old girl was groomed, violated, isolated and often terrified for her life. She continues because she believes Sinn Féin leaders have never properly addressed the brutality of those investigations nor the generational reach of that savage misogynistic culture into the communities they ruled. But a larger part of her story is common to almost every case of abuse. It's in the context and the detail. The physical pain, confusion and humiliation, the gaslighting, the sudden shocking hostility of the family or tribe or institution closing ranks to protect itself, the urge to save other potential victims, the sense of a young, innocent mind and body being tested almost to destruction. One of the most agonising elements for any listener is the isolation invariably forced on the victims. No one is coming to help. It wasn't Cahill herself, but women – older Republican women – who 'reported' her complaints to the paramilitaries, despite the fact that they must have known the repercussions for her. Cahill – whose great uncle Joe Cahill founded the Provisional IRA – herself knew what happened to people who gave evidence against the IRA. The resulting sense of isolation for such a child is unimaginable, the damage unfathomable. How such children endure is a mystery. The case of the three remarkable Brennan sisters , Catherine Wrightstone, Paula Fay and Yvonne Crist, finally reached an endpoint in the criminal courts last week when the second of their brothers, Richard Brennan, was jailed for sexual offences against them in the 1970s and 1980s . They describe a childhood of suffocating fear: fear of unstable and violent parents, of their two abusive brothers, of revealing their terrible secrets to outsiders and not only jeopardising the family's reputation but Richard's aspirations for the priesthood, and fear of a wrathful God. In Máiría Cahill's case, her isolation was not rooted in fear of her parents – who still can't bring themselves to read her book – but rational terror of the larger tribe's vengeance. For the Brennan sisters in leafy Rathfarnham, Dublin, their isolation was about protecting reputations. When they tried to advocate for themselves they were failed at every level – by their parents, by the school, by the failure of state bodies to follow up. In 1984, when 12-year-old Catherine disclosed her abuse at Richard's hands to a trusted school connection, her parents were informed and raged at the child in disbelief. Family therapy meetings, organised following a referral by a hospital unable to diagnose the source of Catherine's lower limb disorder, were cut short by the parents. Lash marks on her body were noted by a teacher, but nothing was done. A poignant detail of the sisters' story all these years later is the harrowing internal battle common to many abuse survivors; that they should have found a way to speak out to protect others, even in the face of conditioning from the cradle. How do they endure? In that context it's important to remember the hundreds, maybe thousands, of vulnerable abused girls who are now no more than pawns in the Maga civil war over the Jeffrey Epstein files. Virginia Giuffre , the most prominent Epstein survivor who turned vocal anti-sex trafficking activist, was first abused by a family friend at the age of seven. Then at 15 while working a summer job at Mar-a-Lago was spotted by Ghislaine Maxwell and 'passed around like a platter of fruit' among her and Epstein's friends. Giuffre's multimillion dollar payouts from Prince Andrew, Maxwell and the Epstein estate brought no closure. Amid accusations of mental instability from her estranged husband – whom she accused of violent possessiveness – Giuffre lost custody of their children. She was just 41 when she took her own life in April. And of the long list of names associated with Epstein, Maxwell happens to be the only one serving time.

Omagh bombing survivor wants High Court to compel State to hold public inquiry into atrocity
Omagh bombing survivor wants High Court to compel State to hold public inquiry into atrocity

Irish Times

time2 days ago

  • Irish Times

Omagh bombing survivor wants High Court to compel State to hold public inquiry into atrocity

Two people directly affected by the Omagh bombing want the High Court to compel the Irish government to establish a public inquiry into the atrocity. Emmet Tunney, who survived the 1998 dissident republican bombing, says the Government is obliged to establish a public inquiry in circumstances where state authorities allegedly held 'actionable intelligence' relating to the attack. Mr Tunney's case states that a public inquiry is required to ensure an effective investigation of the atrocity. He alleges the State's failure to hold such an inquiry is a breach of his rights under the Constitution and under the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). According to Mr Tunney's court documents, article two of the ECHR requires an 'effective, independent, prompt, and public' investigation in circumstances where state agents knew or ought to have known of a real and immediate risk to life. READ MORE Articles 40 and 41 of the Constitution require effective investigations of deaths involving potential state failures, his papers say. Shawneen Conway, whose 18-year-old brother Gareth was killed in the bombing, is seeking to bring an action similar to Mr Tunney's, the High Court heard on Tuesday. A total of 29 people, including a mother pregnant with twins, died and hundreds were injured when a car bomb planted by the Real IRA exploded in the centre of the Co Tyrone town on August 15th, 1998. An independent inquiry into the bombing established by the UK government opened in Omagh in January and is continuing. That inquiry is examining whether the atrocity could have been prevented by UK authorities. In the High Court on Tuesday, Ruaidhrí Giblin, for Mr Tunney, sought an early date for his application seeking the court's permission to bring the case. Ms Justice Mary Rose Gearty said she would hear Mr Tunney's and Ms Conway's applications for court permission next week. Mr Tunney, from Omagh, Co Tyrone, is seeking an order compelling the Government to establish a public inquiry into the bombing and he wants a court declaration that the Government's failure to establish such an inquiry to date is in breach of his rights. He wants to bring his case against the Government, Ireland and the Attorney General. His case claims some of the perpetrators of the bombing are believed to have operated within the Republic of Ireland. He alleges there were failures in intelligence sharing and co-operation between Irish and UK authorities before the bombing. Authorities in the Republic may have had prior knowledge of the Real IRA's planning, his documents claim. Mr Tunney also argues an Irish government inquiry is required in circumstances where there are limitations on the jurisdiction of the UK government's inquiry. For example, he says, the UK government cannot make findings as to whether Irish authorities are culpable for a failure to supply information relating to the bombing. In the UK Omagh bombing inquiry, its chairman, Lord Turnbull, heard arguments over the last two days regarding applications from some survivor and family groups seeking to be represented by special advocates. They said their interests should be represented in closed hearings and they raised a risk of damage to confidence in the inquiry if they were not. However, a lawyer for the UK government said no statutory public inquiry has had special advocates to date and there was no justification to have them in this case. Katherine Grange KC also contended no provision was made for such appointments in the 2005 Inquiries Act and she cautioned around avoiding unnecessary costs. At the conclusion of the hearings around special advocates on Tuesday, Lord Turnbull said the issue raised is 'important and interesting'. He will provide a written decision 'in due course'. – Additional reporting PA

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store