15 May 2003:

TRUTH IN THE OPEN

This week we commemorate the 29th anniversary of the bombing of Dublin and Monaghan.

For many years relatives have been gathering together on each anniversary to remember and to share the pain we continue to suffer, but we also come together to join in pursuing the TRUTH as to what happened in Parnell Street, Talbot Street, South Leinster Street – Dublin, and North Road, Monaghan.

It is 10 years since a British TV Channel broadcast an investigative documentary on the bombings called “Hidden Hand, The Forgotten Massacre”.

10 years ago many of you believed that the contents of that programme would shake the conscience of this nation. The central

message of that programme was that 33 people were murdered in one day as a result of collusion.

Sadly, the documentary was derided by many politicians, civil servants, policemen, commentators and media. It was a false dawn for those of us who need answers to an outrage that changed all our lives.

How things have changed!

What was derided as nonsense by many, is now acknowledged by the most senior policeman in the United Kingdom, as having taken place. John Stevens has lifted the lid on collusion in the late 1980s.

Are we to believe that collusion started in 1987 and stopped in 1989?

If we think of collusion as being like a barrel whose lid has been lifted, then it is a deep barrel and in its depths lies the TRUTH to the bombings of 17 May 1974 and to the TRUTH of the bombings of 1 December 1972 and 20 January 1973.

We should also remember, with anger and concern, that even after 1993, after the Hidden Hand documentary was broadcast, after evidence of collusion had become public, many more people were murdered in acts involving collusion.

It took over 6 years of campaigning, legal actions here and abroad and the efforts of friends and supporters, especially a handful of TDs, to extract a commitment from the government to establish an inquiry.

It was not the full public inquiry we wanted but it was an independent inquiry and it was one we agreed to as part of a process that would assess and report on what had occurred.

By September we believe we will see the Barron Report published and we have every hope that it will be a significant milestone in our

long campaign. We do not expect Justice Barron to be able to expose the full truth. He has not had the powers to do so, he has not had a tenth of the powers or resources that Stevens had. He has

not had the clear and full co-operation of the British Government as promised by the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair.

Even with all those limitations we still believe that the Barron Report will cast a permanent spotlight on the terrible atrocity we remember today.

We have never seen the Barron Inquiry as an end. We remain committed to pursuing the truth after his Report is published. We will carefully consider our response to it. There are numerous options open to us depending on his findings.

We have yet to see the Inquests reopened, we have the options of legal actions against individuals and States, there are International

Courts to which recourse may be had, but most of all we believe that the truth needs to be exposed, exposed in public by way of a sworn Public Inquiry, for our campaign has never been about vengeance but always about Truth.

During the past six weeks the phrases “acts of completion, decommissioning, a final end to the conflict” have been at the heart of debate on the state of the peace process.

Today Justice for the Forgotten, on behalf of the victims of the Dublin and Monaghan Bombings, calls on both the Irish and British

governments and the parties to the Good Friday Agreement to commit themselves to the pursuit of the TRUTH as an essential “act of completion”

No conflict is over for the victims while a veil of secrecy surrounds the death and injury of loved ones. The secrets and conspiracies of the past have to be decommissioned as much as the armaments. Who is it that fears the truth?

Today the heartbeat of our campaign is about “TRUTH IN THE OPEN”.