International Co-operation (Omagh Bombing Inquiry) Bill 2026: Second Stage Seanad Éireann — 2026-05-13 ============================================================ Tom Clonan (IND), University of Dublin I thank the Minister for coming to the House today. I very much welcome the Bill and the statement of intent of the Irish authorities to co-operate with the Omagh bombing inquiry. I sit on a vocational panel. It is one of the ways in which we differ from the Lower House, in that we bring to bear our life and professional experience in the Chamber. I have a couple of observations to make. On 15 August 1998, when the bomb was detonated in Omagh, it was claimed by the then Real IRA that it went off prematurely, so it was a highly unstable device containing 140 kg of fertiliser-based explosives. That would have been the bulk charge and there would have been a time-powered unit and a detonator of sorts. I was on duty that day on the command stand 2, a quick reaction force in Cathal Brugha Barracks which covers the entire Eastern Command, as it was then, up to the Border. We got word, through the military authorities, of this incident. At the time, we would have been routinely tasked to accompany ordnance explosives officers to go out and investigate situations like that. It was obviously in the Six Counties and just outside of our jurisdiction, but we were aware, through the intelligence brief at the time, that dissident republicans and other groups were still very active after the Good Friday Agreement. They were still surveilling targets, carrying out surveillance, monitoring people and selecting targets for abduction and possibly assassination. That continued right up until about 2000 that I know, but I retired after that so I do not know how long that lasted. I have a couple of observations to make about this. The car was a Vauxhall Cavalier, which would be known as an Opel Vectra here. That car was stolen on 13 August, apparently, in Carrickmacross. Whoever stole it carried out sufficient reconnaissance to ensure that the car they stole had a 1991 Donegal registration plate. It was not an Opel Vectra but a Vauxhall Cavalier that had been presumably bought in the North of Ireland and then imported here. They switched the number plates and put a northern registration on it. Then they transported the vehicle somewhere and loaded up the explosives. In a book that has just been published, Only a Soldier Knows: Life on the Front Lines with the Irish Defence Forces by Lieutenant Colonel Ray Lane, a very experienced and highly decorated ordnance officer, he recalls finding a site in County Louth, along the Border, where he felt that explosives of the type that had been used in Omagh were tested within the Republic. When I was an officer, from 1998 to 2000, I was assigned to the Chief of Staff's branch. As such, I attended the monthly intelligence briefs as a staff officer for the Chief of Staff, which were held on a monthly basis. They were presided over by the director of intelligence and director of operations and attended by all the general officers commanding of the Defence Forces. We were very well aware at that time that, within the Six Counties, and notwithstanding the Good Friday Agreement, Operation Banner, the longest lasting operation in the British Army, was still very much in place. At the height of that operation, there were approximately 10,000 to 12,000 full-time Royal Ulster Constabulary, RUC, members, 8,000 to 10,000 part-time RUC members, 10,000 members of the Ulster Defence Regiment, UDR, the largest regiment of the British Army, and approximately 10,000 part-time members of the UDR. Along with that, there were regular British Army units that rotated through Northern Ireland from Thiepval Barracks in Lisburn and Holywood. There were also what were called roulement battalions all along the Border, and these were usually elite units - the Parachute Regiment, 45 Commando, etc. In the late eighties and early nineties, there were approximately 60,000 armed personnel in Northern Ireland. Fermanagh, south Tyrone and Armagh, where this attack took place, was the laboratory for the surveillance society. You would have had surveillance cameras and one armed person for every eight or nine civilians. Is that where you would hide your weapons and explosives and prepare your attacks on crown forces? No. You would prepare for them, assemble them and plan them within the Republic. We have known, in the military and intelligence communities, since the start of the Troubles that the Republic has been the launchpad and, if you like, centre of gravity for the logistics, training and planning of attacks on what we referred to as Northern Ireland security forces. In regard to the stated intent of the inquiries to find out what the UK authorities knew, I would say they knew a certain amount but the Irish authorities certainly knew a lot more. My concern would be that An Garda Síochána had knowledge of the preparation of this device and may have been aware of its location and direction of travel until it exited our jurisdiction and went into the Six Counties. A lot of the people, including the director of intelligence who was in post at that time and senior members of An Garda Síochána, are still alive. However, the window of opportunity to do something like we did after the Civil War, when we took an oral history from all of the participants in the Civil War and the War of Independence, is closing very quickly. I know there is a kind of queasiness to ask people to give an account of what happened on their watch after the issue around the Boston tapes, but our grandparents and great-grandparents made a very good job of trying to find out what actually happened. I think that is something the Minister and Government should consider in the narrowing window of opportunity to find out what actually happened during the Troubles. It was a dirty war and it was fought on all sides in a dark manner. We know from the Smithwick tribunal of inquiry and investigations into the killings of senior RUC officers Buchanan and Breen after they left Dundalk Garda station that there was collusion on all sides of the Border, between An Garda Síochána, which is the primary intelligence agency of the State, MI5, MI6, the RUC, RUC special branch, GCHQ - signals in Cheltenham - British Army intelligence, the force research unit, the Provisional IRA and loyalist groups. There was collusion on all sides. I would like to know if there are any plans for the Irish Government to explore that because in advance of any all-island settlement, we need to fully understand how we, if you like, fought the Troubles from the point of view of the Republic. I think we have to be intellectually and ethically honest about it. We cannot have peace and reconciliation without truth. In May 1974, when I was seven years old, I was in town with my mother and grandmother. I was an altar boy in St. Canice's Church in Finglas, if you can believe it. We were getting my communion outfit. We were up around Henry Street when the devices went off in the Dublin bombings, which led to the deaths of 33 people and left 300 injured. What I remember about it was there was a bang and all the pigeons flew upwards. However, in 1999, when I was staff officer for the Chief of Staff, I was approached by a senior ordnance officer - I will be very brief - who disclosed to me that as an Army ordnance officer at the scene, he recovered a time-powered unit and detonator that were consistent with British Army issue. He filed that in his ordnance report. He was visited at home two days later by a senior member of An Garda Síochána and a person from the British intelligence services who was attached to the British embassy. He was asked to redact his report but he refused to do so. In the same way that we would like to know who carried out the Dublin and Monaghan bombings, I know that our brothers and sisters in Northern Ireland would like to know with equal earnestness and interest who carried out the bomb that killed so many people in Omagh. There is an onus upon us and it behoves to be honest and ask the right questions. At some point in the future, if we cannot have some sort of an oral history project like we did after the Civil War, we should compel retired members of the Defence Forces and An Garda Síochána, at the most senior levels, to give their accounts of what actually happened during the Troubles. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-05-13/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:56+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-05-13