Families of the victims of the Dublin and Monaghan bombings of 1974 have written to the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, "appealing" for a meeting within the next few days. Relatives and their supporters handed a letter seeking the meeting into the Taoiseach's Department yesterday. Represented by a group known as Justice for the Forgotten, they want discussions with him before a High Court hearing on Friday which seeks an order that the Garda Commissioner makes all documents and records on the bombing available to the lawyers of one of the relatives.
The families claim that, when the court case opens, the matter will become subjudice and will not be addressed by the Government.
Thirty-three people were killed and more than 300 injured on May 17th, 1974, when bombs exploded in Dublin and Monaghan. Twenty years later, the Ulster Volunteer Force claimed responsibility amid continuing reports of British intelligence involvement. According to the letter, the relatives' suffering "goes ignored". "No legal action has been initiated by any Irish Government against the perpetrators in any international court. No government has ever offered to fund legal actions by the families or their relatives, as in the recent Short & Others (Dundalk) vs British Nuclear Fuels case." Instead, it claims, Irish governments "continue to obstruct" them in taking their case to the European Court of Human Rights against the British government.