Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)

We will have an opportunity to return to this debate in a few minutes following the Order of Business.

I refer to a different matter that relates to weekend comments about the Omagh bombing, the single worst atrocity in the Northern Ireland Troubles, which cost the lives of 29 men, women and children. The Taoiseach will recall that in the aftermath, his Government appointed an ad hoc non-statutory committee to inquire into allegations that the Garda was in prior possession of information that might have helped in preventing that atrocity.

The Nally committee met and inquired in private and its report was not published. However, a copy was given to Deputy Kenny and me for immediate return. At the time I made it clear I was not convinced that the report had put an end to these allegations. I also made it clear that, whatever the purpose was in giving it to Deputy Kenny and me, I was not being brought into the circle of those who would stand over it as the last word on the matter. I said I was struck by the consistent inability of that committee to query the official Garda version of events where it differed from that of Detective Sergeant White, even where the official version contained contradictions or was unsupported by documentary evidence. I also said:

The report was from a committee of insiders about insiders to be read by insiders. It came from within a hermetically sealed environment. The possibility that even some of the allegations it was investigating might be even partially true would represent a collective corporate failure of massive proportions and with devastating consequences.

Last week the outgoing assistant chief constable of the PSNI, Sam Kincaid, together with his successor and superintendent Baxter, who headed up the inquiry into the Omagh bombings, gave an on the record briefing to the Omagh families on their findings to date. They made clear their view that both MI5 and the Garda had relevant information, which was not passed on to the RUC at the time and which, taken together, would have placed them on a much higher state of alert as far as Omagh was concerned. Their conclusions run entirely counter to the Nally report and its findings.

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