Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)

I thank the Government for agreeing to move this debate from last Friday to today. I had to attend a European People's Party meeting in Madrid. I am grateful to the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform for giving me a copy of the Nally report in confidence. I have respected that confidence and will continue to do so. The report is not mine to publish and clearly I have no intention of doing so.

The Nally report was commissioned following documented evidence of allegations given to the Government by the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland, Nuala O'Loan. She obviously felt that the information given to her was of sufficient importance to warrant an investigation of the allegations made. In doing so she travelled to Dublin to present that to the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Cowen, who passed it on to the then Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Deputy O'Donoghue, who subsequently commissioned the Nally report.

This short Dáil debate allows for some focus on the process and methodology involved and on the attitude adopted by Government towards the matter. It also allows us to focus on the requirements and needs of the families of the victims and, most importantly, on the type and extent of the follow-up now required.

The date of 15 August 1998 is a day which will be forever etched on the memories of those who lost loved ones in the single worst atrocity of the past 30 years. No person has been charged with this atrocity despite the fact that a great deal of evidence exists as to who the perpetrators were. The effect of the Omagh bomb has consumed the lives of the families of the 31 victims each day since. Their search is for the truth and to ensure that justice is seen to be done. The Government has a duty to see that this happens in accordance with its stated position on the night of the occurrence of the atrocity. Today's debate centres on a report based on allegations of Garda activity in the period both before and after this truly tragic incident.

I do not have a monopoly on compassion, nor does anyone in this House. In the run-up to the current position the Government could have done considerably more in dealing with those who lost loved ones as a result of this bomb. The debate is not just about a report but also about lives lost and damaged by the Omagh bomb. We are here to talk about how the Government in the context of the Nally report has treated the survivors of this bomb.

The Government should be aware and should recognise that for the families of the Omagh bomb victims, the Nally report is not just another official document waiting to be published. For these families, this report is a reflection on the end of life. For many of them, this report marks a day when they too stopped living and began to simply exist. To sit with these ordinary people and hear them take their turn around the table outlining whom and what they lost on that August day five and a half years ago, is an exceptionally sobering experience. The Government should be under no illusion. The report that it has refused to publish, even in part, has become for the families of Omagh a critique not just of the murder but of the humanity of these ordinary people living ordinary lives.

The Government has treated itself to the luxury of keeping these victims anonymous. It has treated them as an amorphous mass. The families, though, have no such luxury nor, in the five years since 15 August 1998, have they had a scintilla of comfort from the Government. They have had no proper meeting despite five years of repeated requests. The 15 minutes offered last Thursday is simply not adequate. I will remove the Taoiseach, the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform and the Government from their comfort zone. These dead people are not anonymous. Those who died were Unionists, toddlers, babies, schoolgoers, Orangemen, Celtic fanatics, Manchester United fanatics and car fanatics. They were Sunday school teachers, businesspeople, engineers, Oxfam volunteers and university undergraduates. They came from Omagh, Buncrana, Newtownsaville and even Madrid. These anonymous people had just one thing in common: their massacre. None of them came home.

Although their murder and the Government's stonewalling of their relatives on the publication of the Nally report is bad, apparently it is not enough. The Taoiseach appointed an emissary to meet the alleged murderers, the Real IRA. He misled the families, the public and this House about his Government's dealings with these terrorists. On 5, 12 and 19 November last, the Taoiseach asserted in this House his commitment to publishing the Nally report. On 11 December, the Tánaiste told the Dáil that the Minister "has the report and is anxious to publish it as quickly as possible". Given those assertions, is it not then offensive to the families for the Government to cite security as a reason the report cannot be published? Aspects of the Nally report have been selectively leaked to a certain journalist, among them the main conclusions and the Government's stated intention never to publish the report in full despite its public assertions to the contrary.

Apart from the lack of political will, there is no valid reason the Government should not give the Omagh families an edited version of the report. It is the least they deserve after their appalling ordeal and the way they have been treated by the Government. I was glad to hear the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform confirm in his contribution that he was prepared to meet with the families again. I hope this happens soon and that the Minister gives them a reasonable amount of time and discusses elements of the report with them. Yesterday I met again the main body of the families of the victims. They fully understand and appreciate that the Minister cannot publish the Nally report in full, nor do they expect him to do so. However, they do expect that the Minister to talk to them about the process of the report and the main findings without infringing on issues of State security that are central to his constitutional responsibility as Minister. The Minister referred to the verbal assurance that was given to the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland, Mrs. Nuala O'Loan. I must take the Minister's word that such assurance was not given by the group, although the information I have differs from that.

The Nally group comprised three eminent public servants to whom no blame can be attached. However, none of them has the investigative background necessary to get to the truth of the grave matter of the allegations given to Mrs. O'Loan, nor did the group have any judicial or compellability powers. I have referred previously, as has the Minister, to the fact that the Nally group was not in a position to interview a key witness who is being protected by the State under the witness protection scheme. In a report that seeks to draw conclusions from seriously conflicting evidence, surely this is a fundamental inadequacy. Neither does the report explain in a detailed way why a group appointed by the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform could not have done more to secure an interview with this person. The Minister has referred to the witness protection programme, but there are clearly precedents in which people on such programmes have given important evidence. In this case, surely the evidence of a central figure would have been important.

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