International Co-operation (Omagh Bombing Inquiry) Bill 2026: Committee Stage Seanad Éireann — 2026-05-19 ============================================================ Niall Collins (FF), Limerick County I thank Senator Murphy for this amendment. The Senator is seeking to insert a new section after section 5, providing for the taking of written witness statements from office holders and former office holders. The statements would be provided to the designated person who would, in turn, provide them to the chairman of the inquiry. If the chairman is satisfied with the contents, he may decide that he does not require the person concerned to give oral evidence. I note that no provision is made in respect of former ministerial office holders, which presents technical and drafting issues with the Senator’s proposed amendments to later sections of the Bill. While there is some confusion in the drafting of the amendment itself, for example, the office holder or former office holder may well be the designated person who is to give the oral evidence before the nominated judge of the High Court, what is proposed is at odds with the mechanism provided for in the Bill and does not take account of how the State is working with the inquiry. The mechanism provided for in the Bill is, out of necessity, given that the inquiry is established under the laws of another foreign state, premised on the chairman of the inquiry specifying the questions he wishes to be asked and the answers to those questions, insofar as they are acceded to, being put into evidence under oath before a nominated judge of the High Court. The questions specified by the chairman will arise from his consideration of the materials that the inquiry has gathered in the course of its work, including witness statements. As the Senator will be aware, there is a memorandum of understanding in place with the inquiry in relation to the disclosure of Irish State materials. A substantial volume of material has been disclosed to date - over 30,000 pages - and that process is ongoing. The inquiry is examining those materials and materials disclosed by UK state authorities, including the PSNI and the intelligence services. The legal representatives of the core participants to the inquiry, principally family members, are also examining the materials shared with them by the inquiry and drawing any potential lines of questioning to the attention of the inquiry team. Through this process, the inquiry is identifying persons from whom it wishes to take written statements. My Department, as the central point of contact for the inquiry, has already received requests for assistance in relation to the taking of witness statements from a number of persons and is engaging with An Garda Síochána in relation to the processing of those requests. In so far as they may be former office holders, it will, of course, be a matter for them as private citizens to decide whether they wish to provide witness statements as they cannot be compelled to provide assistance to a foreign inquiry. It is not the case, as proposed in the Senator’s amendment, that the head of the State body can ensure that the former office holders provides a written statement. The head of a State body has no power to direct a former official and has no sanction available to them to impose in the case of non-compliance. However, as I stated before the Seanad on Second Stage, we expect co-operation from all concerned who are requested to provide assistance. We anticipate that more requests for witness statements may be received and our Department is giving consideration to formally setting out an agreed process for the handling of such requests. This would be in the interests of transparency and ease of the inquiry. As I understand how the inquiry is approaching its work, following its examination of a written witness statement, it may decide there are matters remaining that necessitate the taking of oral evidence or that there are no outstanding matters and it does not require the person to provide oral evidence. This applies in the case of UK witnesses as it does in the case of Irish State witnesses. We are satisfied from our consultations with the Office of the Attorney General that there is no need for legislation to support the provision of assistance in relation to the gathering of such written statements. It can be done administratively. Finally, I do have to say that I am doubtful as to the logic of creating a mechanism whereby the inquiry makes a request for assistance in the form of oral evidence under section 5 even though it may not be established that the oral evidence is actually required until after the preparation of witness statements under the Senator’s proposed amendment. This seems a somewhat back-to-front approach, if I may say so, and we prefer the logic of the mechanism in the Bill, which is based on the chairman only making a request for assistance where he has established that the taking of oral evidence is required. For those reasons we will not accept the amendment. --- 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/2026-05-19/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:57+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-05-19