11 April 2007

LETTER TO THE SUNDAY INDEPENDENT

Dear Sir,

I wish to respond, on behalf of Justice for the Forgotten, to Jim Cusack's article of last Sunday in relation to the bombing of Dublin and Monaghan on 17th May 1974 and the publication of the MacEntee Report.

Mr. Cusack contends that the MacEntee Report does not support what he calls the 'conspiracy theory' of collusion in the bombings. If he had taken the trouble to read the terms of reference of the Inquiry, he would realise that MacEntee's remit did not extend to matters external to the jurisdiction but was confined to very specific aspects of the Garda investigation as well as missing documentation from the files of the Garda Síochána and the Department of Justice. The only reference to collusion in the Report is that no evidence of it was found to have caused the winding down of the Garda investigation. What MacEntee did find was a terrifying catalogue of failures by Gardaí into the single greatest mass murder in the history of the State.

Mr. Cusack quotes very selectively from a section of the Report dealing with the historical background to the bombings that is, in fact, reproduced directly from the Barron Report. This journalist has refused consistently over the years to accept any version of the event other than that relayed to him many years ago by the Ulster Volunteer Force. He has adhered faithfully to this version regardless of the sources of new information and evidence. Judge Barron, whose terms of reference did include the investigation of collusion, found that, overall, the information provided to him by former RUC Sergeant, John Weir and by Colin Wallace, was credible and much of Weir's evidence, in particular, was confirmed to him from other sources.

Judge Barron, in his conclusions, states:

'A finding that members of the security forces in Northern Ireland could have been involved is neither fanciful nor absurd, given the number of instances in which similar illegal activity has been proven'.

He goes on to state that the material assessed by the Inquiry was insufficient to suggest that senior members of the security forces in Northern Ireland were involved in the bombings. This is hardly surprising when one considers that the British authorities refused to co-operate with the Barron Inquiry. He also asserts:

'It is likely that the farm of James Mitchell at Glenanne played a significant part in the preparation for the attacks. It is also likely that members of the UDR and RUC either participated in or were aware of those preparations.'

As Mr. Cusack will be aware, James Mitchell was a member of the RUC Reserve.

Lt. Col. Nigel Wylde (British Army retired) an Ammunition Technical Officer (ATO) who served in Belfast from June to October 1974 was commissioned by Justice for the Forgotten in 2001 to examine the capability of Loyalist paramilitaries in 1974. Wylde commanded No. 1 Section of 321 Ordnance Disposal Unit, which was responsible for disposing of all terrorist explosives, bombs, booby traps and similar devices in Belfast and the surrounding area. He states in his report:

'Loyalist bombs were simple and unsophisticated and reflected their lack of technical expertise'.

In relation to the Dublin bombing operation he asserts:

Loyalist terror groups did not have the skills to plan and undertake this operation in 1974'.

Finally, Mr. Cusack refers to a 'mysterious ex-British Army officer who was a "homosexualist"' as being another element of the 'conspiracy theory'. In fact, this individual had nothing whatsoever to do with the Dublin and Monaghan bombings. On the night that Dublin was bombed during the Dáil debate on the Amendment to the Offences Against the State Act, 1st December 1972, this man was taken by taxi, at his request, from Dublin to a British Army barracks in Enniskillen where he was left by the taxi driver in the company of three RUC officers.

Does Mr. Cusack accept that collusion existed at all? I would suggest that he reads the Report of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Equality, Defence and Women's Rights on the bombing of Kay's Tavern, Dundalk, published in November 2006, and particularly its conclusions, which accuse the British security forces of international terrorism and reports:

'The Sub-Committee is left in no doubt that collusion between the British security forces and terrorists was behind many if not all of the atrocities that are considered in this report'.

Yours faithfully,

Margaret Urwin
Secretary