Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party)

I am in an impossible position in debating a report that I have not seen. How can we pass judgment by any reasonable standard on a report the Government is insisting on keeping secret? Much less are we in a position to pass judgment on the allegations made against the Garda Síochána, or elements of it, that it in some way facilitated or made the Omagh bombing possible. This was the reason for the report in the first place.

It is not good enough that elected Members of the Dáil, the people in this State and especially the bereaved and the survivors of the Omagh atrocity are expected to take the word of the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform that there is no substance to the allegations. In turn, the Minister has repeated what the three person team concluded. We need to be able to independently form judgments on the conclusions and the reasons those conclusions were reached. We need to be able to get behind the conclusions to determine if we agree with them. This is surely a basic demand.

The Government should publish the report. If the names of people against whom allegations are made that cannot be proved must be deleted, then so be it. The relatives of those killed and maimed in Omagh have demanded that the report be published. This should be honoured. A process of investigation behind closed doors is inadequate and unsatisfactory.

Has the Government not learned anything from the 30 year traumatic aftermath of the 1974 Dublin and Monaghan bombings? The victims of those bombings, and the relatives of those killed, have had a 30 year odyssey in trying to bring out the truth of what happened and make some sense of what was a senseless atrocity. Is another group of relatives and injured survivors to be put through a similar odyssey? There must be an open and public inquiry into what happened and then people can make their judgments.

The Omagh bombing of 15 August 1998 was an outrageous atrocity. As usual, the victims were ordinary working men, women and children. The Omagh bomb demonstrated yet again the utterly reactionary nature of paramilitarism, whether Real IRA, Provisional IRA or loyalist paramilitary. These self-appointed organisations had no mandate for the atrocities carried out in the course of decades in Northern Ireland. Of course, the British establishment, and British imperialism, were the creators of the sectarian divisions in Northern Ireland. Therefore, the solution to sectarianism does not rest with the British establishment or the conservative political establishment of this Republic.

Sectarian divisions have been deepened by the actions of all paramilitaries, whether they are republican or loyalist. Unfortunately, the political structures imposed on Northern Ireland represent an institutionalisation of those sectarian divisions. The unity of working-class people, Protestant and Catholic, in pursuit of a society in which social and economic ills can be resolved with democratic socialist policies is the basis for a solution. It is in the process of achieving a united working class that the paramilitaries and those who seek to divide the people further will be cast aside.

Tá sé míshásúil amach is amach nach bhfuil tuarascáil Nally maidir le buamáil na hÓmaí ós ár gcomhair inniu. Conas is féidir linn breithiúnas a thabhairt ar thuarascáil nach bhfuil feicthe againn? Conas is féidir breithiúnas a thabhairt ar na líomhaintí in aghaidh an Gharda Síochána? Ba cheart go bhfoilseofaí an tuarascáil seo ar son mhuintir na tíre, go mórmhór dóibh siúd a gortaíodh san ionsaí, agus do chlainn agus gaolta na ndaoine a maraíodh.

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