TRIMBLE VOWS TO PUSH FOR VICTIMS' MEETING WITH PM
Trimble vows to push for victims' meeting with PM
THE chairman of the Self-Help and Support Group, set up in the aftermath of the Omagh bombing, has spoken exclusively about the crunch meeting the group held on Monday with UUP leader, David Trimble.
Michael Gallagher, whose son, Aidan, died in the town centre atrocity of August 15, 1998, said the former First Minister had been genuinely shocked to learn the bereaved had not yet been invited to face-to-face talks with either the British or Irish premiers, and he gave an assurance that he would speak to Tony Blair about such a meeting when he met with him later in the week.
Monday's meeting followed a briefing last week by Deputy Chief Constable Mike Tonge, a senior Mersyside officer brought in by the Policing Board to quality assure the investigation into the events of Omagh after Police Ombudsman, Nuala O'Loan's damning report into the Omagh investigation.
Mr. Gallagher revealed that members of his grouping had also met the new Northern Ireland Chief Constable, Hugh Orde.
"Vitally, members were assured by the Chief Constable that the Omagh investigation is the biggest live murder inquiry in the Province and will remain so," Mr. Gallagher said.
He added: "We received assurances from the Chief Constable that the new team now in place will continue with the investigation."
At the meeting, held at the group's office off Campsie Road, 12 members of the group, enjoyed what Mr. Gallagher described as "quite a good hearing".
'Plain speaking'
He claimed: "That was what we needed. There was a lot of plain speaking. We told Mr. Trimble we needed direct action. We are almost five years on from the bombing, and what the governments North and South need to understand is that there are still quite a number of outstanding issues which have not been dealt with properly. We want them to understand that they need to get their act together both in Dublin and in London."
Mr. Gallagher revealed that many emotive topics such as events before the bomb detonation in Market Street were discussed.
"We said there was misuse of intelligence and no co-ordinated evacuation procedure. The government seemed to learn nothing from what happened over the past 30 years. Despite having an army camp on the edge of town, resources were not used effectively to help evacuate the area.
"We told Mr. Trimble we understood the difficulties the police on ground had, but that that did not deflect in any way from those who planned, prepared and carried that bomb into a busy street on a Saturday. They were the ones who closed the doors walked away and knew that there
was going to be a massive loss of life." Mr. Gallagher said members of the group wanted to stress that they had every confidence in the senior investigating officer and his team who were working on the Omagh bomb, but he added that they felt a lot of time had been lost in the early stages of the investigation.
"While we support the new team, there are, however, issues of safety and issues of how intelligence was used. They are important because we have to learn the lesson of Omagh so that no other town or village will suffer in the future in the way the people of Omagh did," he said.
'Amazed'
"We are amazed to learn very little has been done since Omagh. We have not seen any exercises in town centre evacuations or any public awareness campaigns like those for drink driving, speeding and smoking, despite Northern Ireland being the bomb capital of the world."
Mr. Gallagher said that in response to issues raised by the group, and acknowledging that what he had heard was "a lot more detailed than he had received before", Mr. Trimble said there would be mistakes made in the heat of moment.
'We also pointed out to him that all public buildings, shops and offices had fire procedures yet they didn't have a bomb threat procedure, although we have probably had more bomb warnings in Omagh in the past five years than we have had fires here in the in the past 30 years," said Mr. Gallagher.
The support group chairman disclosed that the meeting then moved on to talk about the lack of co-operation between both police forces North and South.
Said Mr. Gallagher: "We have two major police incident rooms just 40 miles apart, each running the same murder enquiry.
"We cannot understand how the best of both forces could not be employed on this task and why there should not be a sharing of intelligence and evidence, something which does not appear to have happened.
"And we have serious concerns about the allegations of the Dublin government having prior knowledge of what happened in Omagh.
"There is a three-man team at the moment examining these allegations in Dublin, but we have no faith in it, something we made clear to Brian Cowan, the South's Foreign Affairs Minister, when we met him in November.
"One member of this team was a former Director of Public Prosecutions who had made decisions around Omagh when seven men were released or charges were dropped in Carrickmacross Courthouse a few months after the bomb."
Mr. Gallagher continued: "The other concern is that none of the people involved have any investigation skills.
Therefore, we feel they are not the most appropriate people to carry out the investigation".
Speaking on the issue of compensation and treatment of victims, Mr. Gallagher said that, because of Omagh there had been a change in legislation in 1998.
Between this policy change and the Bloomfield Report recommendations victims of the Omagh atrocity had fallen down the gap between the two.
He said this felt to be seriously unfair, and he said that although the group had raised the point at different government levels it had met with very little response.
"We then went on to talk about Policing Board representation and we told Mr. Trimble there was a provision to allow former terrorists to sit on it and to have a voice," said Mr. Gallagher.
"But victims are not represented and they should be as they were the people who had suffered directly. We were glad to note that Mr. Trimble took that on board.
"We also raised the lack of support the group had encountered when seeking financial backing from funding bodies.
"We were recently turned down when we applied for funding for two workers to help with the ongoing work with the group, and we were rejected by the Community Relations Council who distributed core funding. We are going to take this up at the highest level."
'Complex'
Continued Mr. Gallagher: "Mr. Trimble was amazed to find there were a lot of complex problems. Maybe that is the reason why a lot of politicians never get involved in the Omagh debate as it is such a complex issue. In truth it is not just a question of justice, yet that is what everybody perceives Omagh to be about.
"We also raised the issue of the Omagh Fund and some of the inadequacies of that.
"We asked Mr. Trimble to support a full cross-border public enquiry into Omagh. We felt he had some difficulty with having a Bloody Sunday style enquiry because of the cost and, I suppose, you have to ask, at the end of the day if it would deliver what people expect of it.
"But Mr. Trimble did agree there should be some form of joint cross-border enquiry, although the mechanisms for that would need to be worked out and would need to include joint jurisdiction."
Concluding, Mr. Gallagher said: "Overall, we pointed out that it has been a long and difficult campaign over the past few years. We told Mr. Trimble we were going to continue until we got the answers that satisfied us and that that would only be achieved if both governments addressed Omagh.
"We are not the kind of people who could walk away and forget about this."
THE chairman of the Self-Help and Support Group, set up in the aftermath of the Omagh bombing, has spoken exclusively about the crunch meeting the group held on Monday with UUP leader, David Trimble.
Michael Gallagher, whose son, Aidan, died in the town centre atrocity of August 15, 1998, said the former First Minister had been genuinely shocked to learn the bereaved had not yet been invited to face-to-face talks with either the British or Irish premiers, and he gave an assurance that he would speak to Tony Blair about such a meeting when he met with him later in the week.
Monday's meeting followed a briefing last week by Deputy Chief Constable Mike Tonge, a senior Mersyside officer brought in by the Policing Board to quality assure the investigation into the events of Omagh after Police Ombudsman, Nuala O'Loan's damning report into the Omagh investigation.
Mr. Gallagher revealed that members of his grouping had also met the new Northern Ireland Chief Constable, Hugh Orde.
"Vitally, members were assured by the Chief Constable that the Omagh investigation is the biggest live murder inquiry in the Province and will remain so," Mr. Gallagher said.
He added: "We received assurances from the Chief Constable that the new team now in place will continue with the investigation."
At the meeting, held at the group's office off Campsie Road, 12 members of the group, enjoyed what Mr. Gallagher described as "quite a good hearing".
'Plain speaking'
He claimed: "That was what we needed. There was a lot of plain speaking. We told Mr. Trimble we needed direct action. We are almost five years on from the bombing, and what the governments North and South need to understand is that there are still quite a number of outstanding issues which have not been dealt with properly. We want them to understand that they need to get their act together both in Dublin and in London."
Mr. Gallagher revealed that many emotive topics such as events before the bomb detonation in Market Street were discussed.
"We said there was misuse of intelligence and no co-ordinated evacuation procedure. The government seemed to learn nothing from what happened over the past 30 years. Despite having an army camp on the edge of town, resources were not used effectively to help evacuate the area.
"We told Mr. Trimble we understood the difficulties the police on ground had, but that that did not deflect in any way from those who planned, prepared and carried that bomb into a busy street on a Saturday. They were the ones who closed the doors walked away and knew that there
was going to be a massive loss of life." Mr. Gallagher said members of the group wanted to stress that they had every confidence in the senior investigating officer and his team who were working on the Omagh bomb, but he added that they felt a lot of time had been lost in the early stages of the investigation.
"While we support the new team, there are, however, issues of safety and issues of how intelligence was used. They are important because we have to learn the lesson of Omagh so that no other town or village will suffer in the future in the way the people of Omagh did," he said.
'Amazed'
"We are amazed to learn very little has been done since Omagh. We have not seen any exercises in town centre evacuations or any public awareness campaigns like those for drink driving, speeding and smoking, despite Northern Ireland being the bomb capital of the world."
Mr. Gallagher said that in response to issues raised by the group, and acknowledging that what he had heard was "a lot more detailed than he had received before", Mr. Trimble said there would be mistakes made in the heat of moment.
'We also pointed out to him that all public buildings, shops and offices had fire procedures yet they didn't have a bomb threat procedure, although we have probably had more bomb warnings in Omagh in the past five years than we have had fires here in the in the past 30 years," said Mr. Gallagher.
The support group chairman disclosed that the meeting then moved on to talk about the lack of co-operation between both police forces North and South.
Said Mr. Gallagher: "We have two major police incident rooms just 40 miles apart, each running the same murder enquiry.
"We cannot understand how the best of both forces could not be employed on this task and why there should not be a sharing of intelligence and evidence, something which does not appear to have happened.
"And we have serious concerns about the allegations of the Dublin government having prior knowledge of what happened in Omagh.
"There is a three-man team at the moment examining these allegations in Dublin, but we have no faith in it, something we made clear to Brian Cowan, the South's Foreign Affairs Minister, when we met him in November.
"One member of this team was a former Director of Public Prosecutions who had made decisions around Omagh when seven men were released or charges were dropped in Carrickmacross Courthouse a few months after the bomb."
Mr. Gallagher continued: "The other concern is that none of the people involved have any investigation skills.
Therefore, we feel they are not the most appropriate people to carry out the investigation".
Speaking on the issue of compensation and treatment of victims, Mr. Gallagher said that, because of Omagh there had been a change in legislation in 1998.
Between this policy change and the Bloomfield Report recommendations victims of the Omagh atrocity had fallen down the gap between the two.
He said this felt to be seriously unfair, and he said that although the group had raised the point at different government levels it had met with very little response.
"We then went on to talk about Policing Board representation and we told Mr. Trimble there was a provision to allow former terrorists to sit on it and to have a voice," said Mr. Gallagher.
"But victims are not represented and they should be as they were the people who had suffered directly. We were glad to note that Mr. Trimble took that on board.
"We also raised the lack of support the group had encountered when seeking financial backing from funding bodies.
"We were recently turned down when we applied for funding for two workers to help with the ongoing work with the group, and we were rejected by the Community Relations Council who distributed core funding. We are going to take this up at the highest level."
'Complex'
Continued Mr. Gallagher: "Mr. Trimble was amazed to find there were a lot of complex problems. Maybe that is the reason why a lot of politicians never get involved in the Omagh debate as it is such a complex issue. In truth it is not just a question of justice, yet that is what everybody perceives Omagh to be about.
"We also raised the issue of the Omagh Fund and some of the inadequacies of that.
"We asked Mr. Trimble to support a full cross-border public enquiry into Omagh. We felt he had some difficulty with having a Bloody Sunday style enquiry because of the cost and, I suppose, you have to ask, at the end of the day if it would deliver what people expect of it.
"But Mr. Trimble did agree there should be some form of joint cross-border enquiry, although the mechanisms for that would need to be worked out and would need to include joint jurisdiction."
Concluding, Mr. Gallagher said: "Overall, we pointed out that it has been a long and difficult campaign over the past few years. We told Mr. Trimble we were going to continue until we got the answers that satisfied us and that that would only be achieved if both governments addressed Omagh.
"We are not the kind of people who could walk away and forget about this."
Further Information
Publisher: TYRONE CONSTITUTION
Ref: TC/1603
Published Date: 10-Apr-03
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