NUALA AND RONNIE MUST END THIS PUNCH AND JUDY SHOW
Nuala and Ronnie must end this Punch-and-Judy show
ABOUT 30 families have a very direct and personal interest in the outcome of the Omagh bomb inquiry. While they would not always sing off the same hymn sheet, they are agreed on one thing - that justice needs to be done for the awful happenings in the Co Tyrone town on August 15, 1998.
The conviction in Dublin this week of south Armagh man Colm Murphy, for his part in the Real IRA bombing, did go some way towards bringing some semblance of justice into the harrowing Omagh story.
Today, there is a little more optimism among the relatives, and in security circles, both north and south of the border, that others will be brought to book for their crimes.
Yesterday, Chief Constable Sir Ronnie Flanagan, significantly accompanied by two senior Garda officers, met the Omagh relatives face to face, detailing at great length his response to the much-disputed report by the Police Ombudsman Nuala O'Loan.
Over five hours, yesterday's meeting was a tense and tortuous ordeal for people who have come through so much heartache and pain over the past three and a half years. Tense and tortuous, not so much due to any apparent shortcomings in the police investigations carried out into the Omagh massacre, but over the fact that evil men who carried out this most heinous atrocity are still at large in the community.
The much-publicised fall-out from the O'Loan report, and the Flanagan response, have not made it any easier for the Omagh families to put the nightmares behind them and to try to re-shape their lives.
Family representatives, who gave Sir Ronnie Flanagan a fair hearing yesterday just as they did Mrs O'Loan last month, plead that a "Punch-and-Judy" routine between the Police Ombudsman and the Chief Constable will not help to free up the pathway to justice.
From day one, obtaining court convictions for the Omagh bombing has been, quite understandably, an obsession for the grieving relatives. But even with governments and police services loudly proclaiming that no stone would be left unturned in catching the culprits, the sheer frustration and pain that only one person has been made amenable to the law is palpable.
Now that the Nuala O'Loan - Ronnie Flanagan verbal conflict appears to be nearing the end of its course and can be put to bed by the Northern Ireland Policing Board, police investigations into the Omagh bombing need to be re-focused with a level of zeal and a commitment which will result in arrests and prosecutions.
A senior detective from Merseyside police has been appointed by Sir Ronnie Flanagan as an advisor to a senior investigative officer from the PSNI, who is probing the bombing. One must assume that the enormous amount of material gathered by RUC and Garda detectives will all be thrown into the melting-pot and that some of it can be extracted as compelling evidence against suspects.
Achieving justice is undoubtedly the primary objective for all those affected by this most awful tragedy, just as finding justice in all the other terrorist atrocities committed over the past three decades has equal validity.
Tragically, relatives of the victims of terrorist massacres like Kingsmill, La Mon, Teebane and Enniskillen still await justice as well. By the shape of things on the political and security fronts in Northern Ireland, they may have a long time to wait.
It must rankle with police on both sides of the border, and with the Omagh relatives, for instance, that Sinn Fein still refuses to urge its supporters to help the police find the people responsible for a crime which caused so much misery and which occurred in a constituency now represented at Westminster by a Sinn Fein MP.
History will probably conclude that the RUC in Northern Ireland was never adequately resourced to investigate well over 3,000 killings which took place over a 30-year time-span. That is not the fault of the police service, but of government. In Omagh, as elsewhere, officers have had to be withdrawn for 'operational reasons' which usually means that their services were required elsewhere.
If any good has come from the current controversy, it is that it has re-focused attention on the need to progress the inquiry, regardless of the expense involved. Sir Ronnie must be given all the resources he requires, for as long as he needs them, to ensure that the people guilty of that terrible act are brought to account.
ABOUT 30 families have a very direct and personal interest in the outcome of the Omagh bomb inquiry. While they would not always sing off the same hymn sheet, they are agreed on one thing - that justice needs to be done for the awful happenings in the Co Tyrone town on August 15, 1998.
The conviction in Dublin this week of south Armagh man Colm Murphy, for his part in the Real IRA bombing, did go some way towards bringing some semblance of justice into the harrowing Omagh story.
Today, there is a little more optimism among the relatives, and in security circles, both north and south of the border, that others will be brought to book for their crimes.
Yesterday, Chief Constable Sir Ronnie Flanagan, significantly accompanied by two senior Garda officers, met the Omagh relatives face to face, detailing at great length his response to the much-disputed report by the Police Ombudsman Nuala O'Loan.
Over five hours, yesterday's meeting was a tense and tortuous ordeal for people who have come through so much heartache and pain over the past three and a half years. Tense and tortuous, not so much due to any apparent shortcomings in the police investigations carried out into the Omagh massacre, but over the fact that evil men who carried out this most heinous atrocity are still at large in the community.
The much-publicised fall-out from the O'Loan report, and the Flanagan response, have not made it any easier for the Omagh families to put the nightmares behind them and to try to re-shape their lives.
Family representatives, who gave Sir Ronnie Flanagan a fair hearing yesterday just as they did Mrs O'Loan last month, plead that a "Punch-and-Judy" routine between the Police Ombudsman and the Chief Constable will not help to free up the pathway to justice.
From day one, obtaining court convictions for the Omagh bombing has been, quite understandably, an obsession for the grieving relatives. But even with governments and police services loudly proclaiming that no stone would be left unturned in catching the culprits, the sheer frustration and pain that only one person has been made amenable to the law is palpable.
Now that the Nuala O'Loan - Ronnie Flanagan verbal conflict appears to be nearing the end of its course and can be put to bed by the Northern Ireland Policing Board, police investigations into the Omagh bombing need to be re-focused with a level of zeal and a commitment which will result in arrests and prosecutions.
A senior detective from Merseyside police has been appointed by Sir Ronnie Flanagan as an advisor to a senior investigative officer from the PSNI, who is probing the bombing. One must assume that the enormous amount of material gathered by RUC and Garda detectives will all be thrown into the melting-pot and that some of it can be extracted as compelling evidence against suspects.
Achieving justice is undoubtedly the primary objective for all those affected by this most awful tragedy, just as finding justice in all the other terrorist atrocities committed over the past three decades has equal validity.
Tragically, relatives of the victims of terrorist massacres like Kingsmill, La Mon, Teebane and Enniskillen still await justice as well. By the shape of things on the political and security fronts in Northern Ireland, they may have a long time to wait.
It must rankle with police on both sides of the border, and with the Omagh relatives, for instance, that Sinn Fein still refuses to urge its supporters to help the police find the people responsible for a crime which caused so much misery and which occurred in a constituency now represented at Westminster by a Sinn Fein MP.
History will probably conclude that the RUC in Northern Ireland was never adequately resourced to investigate well over 3,000 killings which took place over a 30-year time-span. That is not the fault of the police service, but of government. In Omagh, as elsewhere, officers have had to be withdrawn for 'operational reasons' which usually means that their services were required elsewhere.
If any good has come from the current controversy, it is that it has re-focused attention on the need to progress the inquiry, regardless of the expense involved. Sir Ronnie must be given all the resources he requires, for as long as he needs them, to ensure that the people guilty of that terrible act are brought to account.
Further Information
Publisher: NEWS LETTER
Ref: NL/426
Published Date: 25-Jan-02
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