The British Foreign Secretary, Mr Jack Straw, has declined to comment on the failure of the British authorities to release intelligence files to the Barron inquiry into the Dublin and Monaghan bombings of 1974.
Mr Straw said he had read an outline of the report but had not studied the report. Any questions should be put to his press office, he added. He was speaking in Iveagh House after meeting the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Cowen.
When asked whether he had discussed the Barron report with Mr Straw, Mr Cowen said the matter would be taken up with the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Mr Paul Murphy.
Mr Straw also met the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, at a meeting in advance of Ireland's presidency of the EU.
In the Dáil yesterday, Mr Ahern said he believed the British authorities would not release any further records to the inquiry. The Government had received the co-operation "we are going to get on this phase of the Barron report and no issues remain", he said.
Mr Ahern said all "available" information was received from various secretaries of state for Northern Ireland and through raising the matter with the British Prime Minister, Mr Blair. "I take the Prime Minster's word that any information available to him or to the Northern Ireland Office has been given. The issue of records held by MI5 and whether they ever existed is beyond the Prime Minister.
"The inquiry tried to get what security records it could. It got what it was given and I did not imagine any others were going to be given over. My belief is that they never will be." The Barron report said that correspondence with the Northern Ireland Office produced some useful information but there was a refusal to supply other information on security grounds.
