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Relatives to check on £1m legal action
Omagh bomb civil suit 'expensive'
By ALAN ERWIN

OMAGH bomb victims' relatives are meeting their lawyers this week to ensure the legal action against the men suspected of the atrocity is on course.
With £1 million of money raised from the public to take the fight into Northern Ireland's High Court, the families of some of the 29 people killed have stressed the need to carry out regular progress checks.
Michael Gallagher, whose son Adrian, 21, was killed in the August 1998 Real IRA attack, insisted they were not putting their London solicitors under any pressure.
He said: "We want to check what evidence they have amassed against these people.
"As far as money is concerned, our solicitors can show and prove to us they are doing a good job and they are on track with the civil action.
"They have our full support. But where the public have supported the families, we feel it's important to make sure we are the" guardians of that support."
The bid for compensation from five alleged members of the dissident republican terror organisation is not due to be heard in Belfast until next spring.
Mr Gallagher and Gerry McFarland, whose 17-year-old daughter Samantha was also killed in the huge car-bomb blast, will be given an update on progress when they go to the H2O firm of solicitors on Thursday.
Jason McCue, the H2O lawyer who served writs on the suspects in July, was unavailable for comment yesterday.
But one newspaper reported that the firm's lawyers were charging reduced fees and quoted Mr McCue as saying the families' campaign has eaten up a large chunk of the cash raised.
"The families are going everywhere - they've been out to America lobbying to get the Real IRA designated - there was quite a lot of money in that," the newspaper reported him as saying.
"If we didn't have the campaign and it was a normal case, it would have cost a lot less.
"I'm probably being over-defensive; it's just that it gets on my nerves a bit when I know how much hardship everyone on the legal side, including the barristers, has endured for it."
The five men accused, including jailed Real IRA members Liam Campbell and Michael McKevitt, could be ordered to pay millions of pounds in compensation if the families succeed in their civil action.
A clutch of top barristers have been brought in to fight the case, including Lord Brennan QC, a former head of the British bar.
Mr Gallagher admitted he would be seeking reassurances when he meets his legal team, but stressed there was nothing unusual in that.
"I have no reason to believe this meeting will not, at times, be challenging," he said.
"We always ask difficult questions. As clients of a serious civil action we have to ask difficult questions."
Later a joint statement issued by H2O and the relatives insisted a huge amount of research and hard work had been put into pursuing the ground-breaking case.
It said: "As we can all see from the tens of millions of pounds spent on tribunals in the Republic of Ireland and the Saville Inquiry (into Bloody Sunday) in Northern Ireland, going to law is not cheap.
"We are deeply grateful to all those donors who have enabled us to come to this stage when writs have been served.
"We take this opportunity to appeal once again to the generous public to help us see our campaign for justice through to the end."
The statement added that the "strong and affectionate bond" between the lawyers and relatives will not be weakened.
It ended: "Together with the help of our friends we will see this case through to its conclusion."