Written answers

Thursday, 10 July 2025

Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade

Dublin-Monaghan Bombings

Photo of Shane MoynihanShane Moynihan (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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142. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade if he will provide an update on the British Government's response to the State's ongoing request for full disclosure and access to all relevant documents concerning the Dublin Monaghan bombings of 17 May 1974; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [38439/25]

Photo of Simon HarrisSimon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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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 issue with the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Hilary Benn at our very first meeting in February and it was raised more recently at the British Irish Intergovernmental Conference in April.

Over recent years, it has been raised in correspondence with the British Government at official and political level.

I am deeply conscious that the victims’ families and survivors of the bombings have been waiting over fifty years for answers in respect of the events on, and leading up to, 17 May 1974. I want to reassure them, and this House, that I will continue to raise this issue with the Secretary of State and impress upon him the urgency of securing the information at the subject of these requests.

The report of Operation Denton, a review of Glennane Gang cases including the Dublin Monaghan Bombings, is due in the coming months. It is my sincere hope that these findings will shed new light on what happened on that terrible day.

Getting truth and justice for the families and survivors of the Dublin and Monaghan bombings, and indeed those of other brutal atrocities that were committed during the Troubles, is of the utmost importance. Intensive work continues with the British Government to try to find agreement on a comprehensive package of measures to address the legacy of the Troubles.

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