Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue and for consistently keeping it on the agenda in his time in the House. It is important that is done. Earlier this month, as he noted, we marked the 51st anniversary of the Dublin and Monaghan bombings of 17 May 1974. Those brutal attacks claimed the lives of 34 people, including an unborn baby, injured hundreds more and shocked the country to its core. More than five decades on, it remains deeply regrettable, to put it mildly, that no person has been held responsible for the attacks.

This House has unanimously supported four all-party motions calling on the British Government to allow access by an independent international judicial figure to all original documents relating to the Dublin and Monaghan bombings. The absence of a substantive response from the British Government to date in respect of those requests is a matter of great concern. I raised this directly with the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland at our first in-person meeting here in Dublin. It was also raised by the Minister for Justice and me on 24 April at the British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference at Hillsborough Castle. I will continue to raise this issue and take the clearly expressed will of this House forward in all future engagements.

In line with the commitment in the programme for Government to address the legacy of the conflict in this jurisdiction, the Government remains committed to finding truth and justice for the victims' families and the survivors of these heinous attacks. We continue to make every effort to facilitate co-operation with legacy investigation bodies outside of this jurisdiction, such as Operation Denton and Operation Newham under the Kenova body of work. We eagerly await the publication of the Operation Denton report in the coming months in the hope it will provide families and survivors with long-awaited answers. It is important to reiterate that the investigation into the Dublin and Monaghan bombings remains an open case in this jurisdiction. Any new evidence that comes to light, from whatever source, will be fully and rigorously pursued by the Garda authorities.

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