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Bid to upset Omagh bomb victims' case

THE Omagh bomb victims' £14 million compensation claim could be wrecked by Real IRA mastermind Michael McKevitt's bid to halt Government funding for their case, the Northern Ireland High Court heard yesterday.
Lawyers for the terror chief delivered a withering assessment on the Lord Chancellor's decision to give more than £700,000 to help fund the civil action.
Relatives of some of the 29 people murdered in the August 1998 massacre are attempting to sue McKevitt and four other men they suspect plotted the massacre, but Frank O'Donoghue QC claimed Lord Falconer used "unfettered power" to vault standard procedures and deliver cash to the families.
A proper aid assessment through the Legal Services Commission had not been carried out, it was alleged.
Mr O'Donoghue claimed consultations involving the Lord Chancellor's Office, the Commission and solicitors for the Omagh families were held before new legislation was brought in that helped finance the civil action.
Days after McKevitt, 54, of Blackrock, Co Louth, was jailed for 20 years in August 2003 for running the Real IRA - the dissident republican organisation behind the Omagh atrocity - the Government announced it was to pay nearly £800,000 towards the victims' legal costs.
The families have named McKevitt and four others: Seamus Daly, Seamus McKenna, Liam Campbell and Colm Murphy in High Court papers.
At a judicial review application hearing today, however, Mr O'Donoghue insisted the Lord Chancellor had wrongly taken complete control of the legal aid system to fund the case.
"He has effectively re-written the Access to Justice order 2003," the QC said. "The Lord Chancellor has given himself powers Parliament clearly never intended him to have."
But Lord Brennan QC, for the families, claimed McKevitt only turned his sights on the funding issue after he was refused cash assistance himself.
After an all-day hearing, Mr Justice Coghlin reserved judgement.