Survivors and families of those killed in the Omagh bomb have asked to be represented by a special advocate in closed hearings at the public inquiry.
Omagh bombing inquiry chairman Lord Turnbull is hearing arguments around various applications during dedicated hearings this week.
Paul Greaney KC, counsel to the inquiry, which is examining whether the 1998 dissident republican bomb attack could have been prevented, said it will hear some sensitive security evidence in closed hearings.
A total of 31 people, including unborn twins, died and hundreds were injured when a car bomb planted by the Real IRA dissident republican group exploded in the centre of the Co Tyrone town on August 15th, 1998.
RM Block
Speaking during hearings in Belfast on Monday, Mr Greaney said the inquiry’s legal team recognises that survivors and the bereaved have spent 25 seeking the truth.
He said some may be “suspicious or even cynical of the UK state’s willingness to engage in a way that is straightforward and wholehearted with this inquiry”.
“We acknowledge too, that the idea of evidence being heard in circumstances in which the families and survivors will be excluded is one that they will find difficult to accept, to say the least, and accordingly, we regard it as entirely understandable that some, although not all, have suggested special advocates should be appointed to represent their interests in any closed hearings, and have made applications for that to occur,” he said.
Outlining the arguments that will be made, Mr Greaney said some contend special advocates cannot legally be appointed in a statutory public inquiry, while others have said if such a power does exist it should not be exercised.
He said others have said special advocates can legally be appointed in an inquiry, and should be in this case to ensure the interests of the bereaved and survivors are protected, meanwhile others are neutral, and one group has said they are content to leave the matters to the inquiry’s legal team.
Mr Greaney said the Advocate General of Northern Ireland, Lord Hermer KC, and UK secretary of state Hilary Benn’s position is that there is no power to appoint a special advocate in a statutory public inquiry.
Hugh Southey KC, acting for some of the bereaved families and survivors, emphasised the importance of a process from which everyone walks away feeling confident of the outcome. His clients “obviously have a degree of scepticism about the state’s position in relation to this inquiry”, he said.
Mr Greaney last month said the inquiry would not begin examining the atrocity itself until next year due to the “pace of disclosure”.
He said chapter three of the inquiry, which “will consider the bombing itself”, would commence in March of next year.
The inquiry, which opened last year, was ordered by the UK government in the wake of a court judgment 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. – PA
