IN/0752

Omagh bomb remembered
By AP Maginness

THE seventh anniversary of the Omagh bombing was yesterday marked with a commemoration in the town's Remembrance Garden.
More than 200 relatives of the men, women and children killed in the blast attended the service along with NIO minister Lord Rooker and the Republic's education minister Mary Hanafin.
Twenty-nine men, women and children, including a woman pregnant with twins, died and hundreds were injured in the car bomb attack in the Co Tyrone town on August 15 1998.
Local churchmen conducted an interdenominational service during which flowers were laid at the memorial to the dead.
The Real IRA car bombing was the single worst atrocity in over 30 years of terrorist violence in Northern Ireland.
Michael McKevitt (54) from Blackrock, Co Louth is serving a 20-year sentence in the Republic for running the Real IRA.
He and four other men Seamus Daly, Seamus McKenna, Liam Campbell and Colm Murphy are being sued in a civil action by some of the relatives of the victims.
And the families yesterday hit out at the low level of compensation they have been receiving for the loss of their loved ones.
Michael Gallagher, whose 21-year-old son Aiden died in the blast recently accepted a five figure sum after a lengthy legal battle with the Compensation Agency.
"It's not even the price of a good quality new car," he said. "They say they don't put a price on human life but they do, and it's very low."
Mr Gallagher accepted that money could not bring back the dead but said it could relieve the stress for bereaved families.
Godfrey Wilson, whose daughter Lorraine died in the bombing, was given £7,500. He described it as "a disgrace".
He added: "To be honest we shouldn't have taken it. We would have been better accepting nothing - the pittance they gave us was an insult to Lorraine."
The families contrasted their treatment by the British authorities to that of the US government to the families of the victims of the 9/11 attacks - more than £1 million a family, including those of British victims.