Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independents 4 Change) | Oireachtas source

Yesterday, we welcomed some members of the families of the 27 victims of the Dublin bombing and the seven who lost their lives in Monaghan, along with representatives of the Justice for the Forgotten group, to the Dáil for the debate on Sinn Féin's motion for the 50th anniversary of the Dublin and Monaghan bombings. I welcomed that motion and the families welcomed the fact that the Government also supported it. However, one thing the motion failed to address is the fact that the families of the victims of those two horrific acts have never had the Garda files released to them or their legal teams. The motion referred to material from Operation Denton but a number of TDs raised issues of concern yesterday. The Garda investigation was famously inadequate and the State's response was callous and uncaring. The investigation was closed after ten weeks. Files relating to the investigation were lost or destroyed. The Barron commission criticised the investigation for ending too soon. Forensic evidence was mishandled. Evidence and files that should have been sent North after 24 hours were not sent for 11 days and then went missing.

Garda forensic technical expert, James Donovan, who was sent some material to test by the Garda, was not made aware that the material went North for 25 years. The forensics team in Dublin did not work in co-operation with its counterparts in Belfast. Not one survivor or bereaved family member was interviewed by the Garda in Dublin or Monaghan after the atrocity or to date. After 50 years, no policeman knocked on their doors. Jon Boutcher, who initially headed up Operation Denton, was the first policeman to knock on people's doors as part of his inquiry.

Bertie Ahern, when he was Taoiseach, said there was nothing in the files that would have suggested or indicated who was responsible. If the files are so clean of evidence, why have they not been released to the families? They should be released now. There have been 29 Ministers for Justice since the atrocity. None has been willing to release Garda files to the families' legal teams. Two of them, Nora Owen and Máire Geoghegan-Quinn, told the families at meetings that they should go and find their information and, if they found something, to come back to them. The investigative material presented to the McEntee inquiry has been blocked to the families' legal teams by the Government under the Commissions of Investigation Act 2004. This will stop family members and their legal teams from seeing the material for 50 years. I call on the Minister, as do the families, to release these materials immediately to the families and their legal teams.

This investigation was mishandled by the Garda. The aftermath, including the grief of the victims and their families, was mishandled by the State. The Tánaiste acknowledged that last night. The families want to see the investigation files but they still have not been allowed to do so. They will have to wait decades until the Commissions of Investigation Act no longer applies. Will the Government commit to releasing immediately the Garda files and the investigation materials to the victims, their families and their legal teams? If the Government gets its own house in order, we can go to the British state and ask it to get its house in order.

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