Publications

On this page you will find links to all major publications and documents of relevance to the Justice for the Forgotten campaign.

These include the reports of the two private inquiries instigated by the Irish government (the Barron Reports and the MacEntee Report), decisions of the European Court of Human Rights relating to these, submissions by Justice for the Forgotten to the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Equality, Defence and Women's Rights and other documentation.

The Barron Inquiries

Since the broadcast of the 'Hidden Hand' documentary in 1993, which deepened the concerns held by the victims of the Dublin-Monaghan bombings regarding collusion by the British security forces, the Irish goverment have set up two private inquiries into the allegations.

An Independent Commission of Inquiry into the Dublin and Monaghan bombings was established in January 2000 and was finally concluded in 2003. The report of the Commission of Inquiry (the Barron Report) was published on 10 December 2003.

It was published, through the mechanism of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Equality, Defence and Women's Rights, as an Interim Report. A sub-committee of the Joint Oireachtas Committee was then established to consider, including in public session, the Report and produce recommendations.These recommendations were published as a Final Report. (See below for both).

Resulting from an expansion of his original remit that occurred during his investigations, Barron published three subsequent reports dealing with the Dublin bombings of 1972 and 73, the murder of Seamus Ludlow and the bombing of Kay's Tavern.

These were published in a similar fashion to the first report (see above) and were each considered, including in public session, by a sub-committee of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Equality, Defence and Women's Rights. Three further Joint Committee reports were then published regarding these reports.

After considering the Barron Report on the Dublin and Monaghan bombings, the Joint Oireachtas Committee recommended that the Irish government establish a Commission of Investigation Inquiry to deal with the outstanding internal issues raised by the report.

The Commission of Investigation, set up on 13th May 2005,under the terms of the Commissions of Investigation Act (2004), and under the sole membership of Mr. Patrick MacEntee, S.C., Q.C., was due to present its final report to Government on 13th November 2005. The Final Report (the MacEntee Report) was published on 4th April 2007. The Final Report and all eight Interim Reports are available below.

The Barron Report on the Dublin and Monaghan bombings also recommended that an inquiry based on the Weston Park protocol be established to deal with external issues. It stated that, following that Inquiry, the judge, who should be of international stature, should be able to recommend a Public Tribunal of Inquiry in Northern Ireland and/or Britain.

Shamefully, the British Prime Minister of the time, Mr. Tony Blair, in a memo to the Taoiseach, Mr. Bertie Ahern, dated 10 January 2005, refused to consider the establishment of any inquiry in his jurisdiction. The position of the British government remains the same today.

The Committee recommended that, in the event of the British Government failing to co-operate, the Irish Government should consider instituting proceedings in the European Court of Human Rights against the United Kingdom.

Justice for the Forgotten lodged two complaints against the United Kingdom with the European Court of Human Rights as follows:

1. The first complaint alleged acts and conduct on the part of the security forces and police services of the United Kingdom amounting to collusion directly and/or indirectly in the bomb outrages in contravention of Article 2.
   
2. The second complaint alleged a failure by the United Kingdom to co-operate with the effective investigation of these outrages by recent Inquiries in this State.

On the 25th August 2005, the European Court of Human Rights ruled them inadmissible under the European Court of Human Rights Rules of Court, which require complaints to be made within a special six-month time limit. The Court ruled that time ran in respect of the principal complaint from 1993 when the Yorkshire TV documentary was broadcast. They further ruled that the failure of the UK Government to co-operate with later State inquiries did not create a new cause of complaint.

Decision made by ECHR as to the admissibility of complaint made in relation to the Dublin bombings of 1st December 1972 and 20th January 1973. (December 2005.)

Further publications and documents

Report of the Independent, International Panel on Alleged Collusion in Cross-Border Sectarian Killings in Ireland

In 2006, a panel of independent international experts, chaired by Prof. Douglass Cassel, Director of the Center for Civil & Human Rights of the Notre Dame Law School found evidence of collusion by agents of the British government in the murders of 74 members of the Catholic community in Northern Ireland in the 1970s. The evidence was presented to the British and Irish governments in the form of a 115-page report in November 2006 in both Belfast and Dublin.

The panel examined 25 cases of suspected loyalist paramilitary violence on the island of Ireland during 1972-77. It found that in 24 of the 25 cases, including the May 1974 Dublin Monaghan bombings, evidence suggests collusion by members of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) or the Ulster Defense Regiment (UDR).

Report of the Independent International Panel on Alleged Collusion in Cross-Border Sectarian Killings in Ireland. (October 2006)

Our submissions to the Joint Oireachtas Sub-Committee

Below our transcripts of our contributions to the oral hearings of the Joint Oireachtas Sub-Committee on a number of bombings and attacks investigated by the Barron Reports.

20th January 2004 | 27th January 2004 | 18th February 2004 | 9th March 2004

Transcripts of our contributions to the Joint Oireachtas Sub-Committee on the Barron Report into the Dublin bombings of 1972 and 1973.

25th January 2005 | 26th January 2005 | 3rd February 2005

27th September 2006

'Subversion in the UDR' Document

Below is a secret British intelligence report into subversion in the UDR including 'Annex E', which details fatal and non-fatal attacks carried out with a weapon stolen from a UDR/TA base in Lurgan, Co. Armagh in October 1972. These and other highly significant documents were discovered by staff from Justice for the Forgotton and the Pat Finucane Centre at the National Archives (Public Record Office) in London in January 2007. The files had recently been declassified and released under the 30-year rule by the Ministry of Defence.

See also: www.patfinucanecentre.org