29 September 1999:

NO FAITH IN A PRIVATE INQUIRY

The survivors and families have no faith in a private inquiry. The government decision contrasts sharply with the public inquiry being conducted into the Bloody Sunday massacre in Derry.

There are clearly matters of public interest in the case of the Dublin and Monahan bombings to warrant a public inquiry. The reluctance of the government is bizarre and in the view of many may be explicable only in terms of maintenance of secrecy over that which should be revealed. It adds insult to the injury suffered by the bereaved and wounded. Justice for the forgotten understands that the eminent legal person to be appointed to conduct a private inquiry will be charged with examining the case for a public inquiry.

1. The relatives and victims cannot and will not engage in a private inquiry into mass murder and compromised police inquiries into these murders.
   
   
2. Justice for the forgotten as part of its ongoing campaign will engage in what we see must be a preliminary examination with the chairman of the case for a public inquiry. We will demonstrate to the chairman of the inquiry the impossibility and inappropriateness of an inquiry into these matters being conducted other than in public.
   
   
3. It is clearly in the interest of public faith and confidence in our police and justice system that the facts are examined and brought out publicly in an open process, which does justice to the concern of the bereaved and of the Irish people as a whole.