The public inquiry into the 1998 Omagh bombing will not begin examining the atrocity itself until next year due to the “pace of disclosure”, a senior lawyer has said.
In opening remarks on Monday, Paul Greaney KC, senior counsel to the inquiry, said he had “hoped and expected to be further advanced than we are”.
He said chapter three of the inquiry, which “will consider the bombing itself”, would commence in March of next year.
“That gap of nine months between Chapter Two and Chapter Three is unfortunate, in our view, and is a further consequence of the pace of disclosure to the inquiry,” Mr Greaney said.
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“The speed of disclosure to the inquiry by material providers must increase, and that is why we repeat the need for the state core participants and indeed all material providers to work at pace to fulfil the requirements of the inquiry and to ensure that the necessary resources, both human and financial, are dedicated to that work.”
A total of 31 people, including unborn twins, died and hundreds were injured when a car bomb planted by the dissident republican group the Real IRA exploded in the centre of Omagh on August 15th, 1998.
The inquiry, which opened last year, was ordered by the UK government to examine whether the atrocity could reasonably have been prevented by British state authorities.
During a four-week sitting in the Strule Arts Centre in Omagh earlier this year, the inquiry heard emotional testimony from bereaved relatives who delivered pen portraits of their loved ones, as well as from the injured and first responders.
It resumed on Monday for two days to hear opening statements from core participants to the inquiry. The core participants include the bereaved and injured and state authorities including the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) and the Northern Secretary.
Mr Greaney said he was “grateful” for the efforts of the PSNI to allocate resources to the inquiry, and he was “not today advancing criticisms of any material” but was “simply setting out our expectations as the inquiry moves forward”.
