UH/1794

Bereaved families and fundraisers say Omagh Fund must be wound up
BY ADRIAN MULLAN

SIX and a half years after the Omagh Fund was setup to allow people to register their sympathy and support for bereaved and people seriously injured in the Omagh blast of August 1998, the Fund shows no signs of being wound-up.
Though it was expected at the time of its establishment that the Fund's life span would be a short one - according to one of the Trustee's it could continue in existence for up to another two years.
Two weeks ago, Chris McGale, one of the major corporate fund-raisers for the Omagh Fund said he felt the Fund should have been wound up a long time ago and the remaining monies fully distributed to the bereaved and the seriously injured.
But there is no cut-off date for the Fund which has come in for some criticism in recent times for awarding money to a government funded body, namely the Trauma Centre. So why is the Omagh Fund still trudging on when it has ceased to be a direct comfort to the victims?
Sean O'Dwyer, one of the Trustees of the Fund and its main spokesman told the UlsterHerald, "The situation is that we have allocated money to the NICTT (the Trauma Centre) and two other organisations, WAVE and the Tara Centre, people who are involved in counselling people who have troubles. Apart from the money we have allocated ... we also have money for a potential memorial. Omagh District Council seems to want us to hold on to it until the end, but I know they could take it in the morning if we said we were closing down. That's the only reason that we feel that we can't close down until towards the end of next year. We would have liked to have closed down last year, but our advice has been that we should really remain in existence to account for all of the money."
It was put to Mr O'Dwyer that one of the terms of reference, on which the Fund was based was that it should quickly disburse funds (and then, by implication, cease to exist).
"You got our report that we published last year and it indicated that we disbursed most of the money that we could disburse. Most of the money we disbursed very speedily, nearly all in the first twelve months of the existence of the Fund. But we have this other money that we have allocated to these organisations, and providing they carry on and do what they say they're supposed to do, then we feel we have to remain in existence; it's not that we want to."
So, why can't the remainder of the money just go to the bereaved and injured rather than going to these other various projects?
"The situation is that all of the money from London came into the charitable fund, and I've a list of all of the donors, but it was all given charitably, and that was just over £1 million. The Dublin money didn't go into the charitable fund because the charitable status didn't apply to people living in the Republic ... but that money could not be donated in big amounts to individuals, but it could be donated in small amounts. So, we used it for the Hardship Fund."
REMAINS
There is less than half a million pounds still remaining in the Fund which has already been allocated over a three year period to the bodies mentioned above.
Mr O'Dwyer said that having allocated money to the NICTT the Trustees felt that the Trauma Centre wasn't spending that money and so it had to change the amount allocated.
"These organisations might be helping people in Omagh, even without our money, in seven years time", he said.
Meanwhile, Stanley McCombe, who lost his wife, Anne, in the blast commented, "If the fundraisers are talking about it needing to be wound-up who am I to say differently. I think it's a phase of this disaster that should be wound-up. I mean, who was it set up to help? They should get rid of the remainder of the money now."