Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

There are several thousand cases in Northern Ireland and the Ombudsman was anxious that relatives would be able to access whatever records and whatever examination of records would be there. It is proving to at least be useful in Northern Ireland. That is working and wherever there is a necessity we will co-operate. Of course there is our own inquiry, which Mr. Justice Smithwick has started, where we have given an undertaking to deal with them.

Most of the cases that we have had have been investigated by Mr. Justice Barron, in any of the cases where people wanted to raise them. All of the ones of which I was aware have been dealt with in the process of Mr. Justice Barron. If there were any outside of that, perhaps it would be useful that the Garda would investigate them. We used the process of the late Mr. Justice Hamilton first and then that of Mr. Justice Barron to examine these issues. Therefore, there would not be a need for that but I assure the Deputy that wherever there is a need for cross co-operation on any of these issues within the Garda, we could certainly provide for it.

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