Relatives of the victims of the Omagh bomb today described as "a waste of time" a two-and-a-half-hour meeting in Dublin with Minister for Justice Mr Michael McDowell.
The families asked the Minister to make public the findings of the Nally report, which was ordered by his department to investigate allegations that gardaí had prior knowledge of a terrorist attack in the North shortly before the Omagh bombing.
But Mr McDowell refused to discuss the issue.
An angry spokesman for the relatives' group, Mr Michael Gallagher, whose son died in the bombing, said: "The main issue we wanted to talk about was the Nally report.
"But the Minister point blankly refused to discuss it all. He said he would speak to the Dáil when it meets again but would not talk about any aspect of the Nally report.
"We would not have been here today if we had thought we were not going to talk about it. He has certainly wasted our time," Mr Gallagher said.
"It was our understanding that after the minister received the report, he would talk to the families about it. But he would not."
Mr Gallagher said the Minister had told the delegation that he had made a commitment to the Dáil to speak there first. He added: "We made the point that it would be more appropriate to the speak to the families than to a bunch of politicians.
"We had a very difficult job to press him to agree to allow us to come back after he has delivered his speech to the Dáil. He was very reluctant to do that but agreed he would meet us at some time.
"This Minister had made up his mind before he came into the room to meet us."
Later Mr McDowell said that his first responsibility was to the Irish parliament and the people of Ireland and that he would report to the Dáil on the contents of the Nally report.
The minister said he understood the families' frustration over not being able to get as much information as they wanted.
But he said the Real IRA represented the number one security threat to the state and he was not going to damage the fight against the terrorist organisation by putting intelligence and information into the public domain.
Mr McDowell also said it was neither necessary nor appropriate for the government to fund the Omagh families' civil action in a Belfast High Court where it was the responsibility of the British government to ensure that both sides were adequately resourced.
A total of 29 people, including a woman who was pregnant with twins, died in the bombing of Omagh in 1998 and more than 200 were injured.
Last month, Mr McDowell indicated he was considering the report, which he received 10 days ago from a three-man committee chaired by senior civil servant Mr Dermot Nally, and confirmed he was seeking legal advice on issues arising from it.
Today's meeting follows the weekend's charging of Armagh man Mr Sean Gerard Hoey (34) with possessing explosives and membership of the "Real IRA", the group that claimed responsibility for the Omagh bomb.
So far, only one person, Co Louth man Colm Murphy, has been convicted in connection with the bombing.
Last month, however, the leader of the "Real IRA", Michael McKevitt, was jailed for 20 years after becoming the first person to be charged in the State with directing terrorism.
Lawyers acting for families of the victims have requested that the Government provide transcripts from that trial as well as other proceedings and for permission for gardaí witnesses to travel north to Belfast to give evidence in a civil action they are taking against five men in relation to the Omagh atrocity.
Asked for the minister's response to the Omagh families' statements today, a spokeswoman for the Department of Justice referred ireland.comto a statement issued last week.
The statement said the minister had sought legal advice in relation to certain issues arising from the Nally report and that he would make a statement to the Dail on its return. "The Minister will have no further comment to make on the matter prior to that," the statement concluded.
The spokeswoman said the minister would discuss the report with the families "at an appropriate time" but that this would not be in advance of his statement to the Dail.
PA