International Co-operation (Omagh Bombing Inquiry) Bill 2026: Committee Stage
Seanad Éireann — 2026-05-19
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Niall Collins (FF), Limerick County

As we understand it, in the Senator's proposed amendment to section 5(5) and its equivalent in section 6(5), he is seeking to introduce a form of compulsion for former officeholders, be they past members of An Garda Síochána, the Defence Forces, civil servants or former ministerial officeholders, to give evidence before the High Court. This would be subject to the person concerned having the right to demonstrate that answering the questions would give rise to a risk of prejudice to their legal rights or to the performance of functions lawfully exercised during their tenure. The risk of prejudice would need to reach the level of "a substantial and objectively reasonable risk of prejudice". In such cases their consent would be required.
Leaving aside some confusion in the wording of the amendment, which refers to consent being required in the first part and to a refusal to consent in the second part, the proposal is fundamentally flawed. It seeks to assign to the chairman of the inquiry the role of reviewing the case set out by the person for refusing to consent "for adequacy and reasonableness". In effect, the amendment appears to assign to the chairman the role of deciding whether the person has the right to refuse to consent to provide oral testimony before the nominated Irish High Court judge.
In considering this proposal, it is necessary to recall that the inquiry is established under the law of another sovereign state. The chairman of the inquiry is necessarily limited to applying the law of the United Kingdom and were he to be assigned a role in determining the adequacy and reasonableness of the case put forward by the person concerned, he could only do so by applying UK law.
I respectfully say this is not a tenable proposition. It is also the case that the chairman's powers do not extend beyond the United Kingdom, and any view he might take on the case made could have no validity under Irish law. The amendment raises many other issues, such as whether the outcome of the chairman’s review would be subject to appeal before the courts, here or in the UK, thereby introducing delay into the process, or whether a person suffering ill health would have any means of declining a request to assist. These are secondary to the fundamental problem with the proposal.
An important consideration when developing this Bill was how provision might be made for past office holders to assist. Like everyone, we are very conscious that the inquiry will likely wish to seek to hear from those with first-hand information of the events prior to the bombing. We are also very conscious that due to the passage of time, most if not all of those persons will be well into their retirement. While such persons can of their own volition decide to attend before the inquiry in the UK if they choose to do so, they would remain subject to certain residual obligations in respect of sensitive information acquired during their service but without the benefit of the privileges and immunities which they are entitled to under Irish law. In effect, they would be putting themselves at risk of being held criminally liable for failure to comply with orders of the chairman.
It is these considerations that resulted in the scope of the Bill before us going beyond what was provided for in 2019 in respect of the provision of assistance to UK Troubles-related inquests. While what is provided for is voluntary assistance in recognition that past officers or private citizens cannot be compelled to provide assistance to a foreign inquiry, as I stated before in the House at Second Stage, we expect co-operation from all concerned who are requested to provide assistance. It is clear from that my remarks that we are not accepting the amendments.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-05-19/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:57+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-05-19