Irish Govt must fully co-operate with Omagh Inquiry, which opens this week, says victims campaigner Michael Gallagher whose son Aidan was among 31 people killed

Michael Gallagher has described the Omagh bombing that devastated the Co Tyrone town on August 15th, 1998, killing 29 people, including a woman pregnant with twins and injured over 250 other victims as the “single worst failure of security and intelligence in the history of this state”.

Along with other bereaved families he has spent almost a quarter of a century campaigning for an inquiry into the dissident republican bomb attack.

Yet an inquiry was only ordered last year by the former Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris to investigate the security failings that a High Court judge had concluded could well have prevented.

In his 2021 judgment, Mr Justice Horner directly recommended that the UK government carry out an investigation into alleged security failings in the lead-up to the atrocity.

The judge also urged the authorities in the Republic to establish their own investigation in light of his findings, which identified security failings south of the Border were an important contributory factor.

Earlier this month, the Irish Cabinet formally agreed to provide assistance to the inquiry.

Lord Turnbull, who will chair the Inquiry has said he is confident the terms of reference would allow him to conduct a “thorough and robust investigation”.

But it was Michael Gallagher’s decision to seek a judicial review of a previous British government’s decision against a public inquiry into the Omagh bomb that ultimately forced it to change its prosition.

“It ended up 10 years in court challenging the government’s decision, then almost a year before the judge made a judgment and then the secretary of state ordered the inquiry,” he said. “I still wake up in the morning and wonder is it true. I’m enormously grateful for the secretary of state granting a public inquiry, I think it’s hugely important.

“This was the single worst failure of security and intelligence in the history of this state, and we had 31 people died and over 250 injured.

“I think it is important that what happened in the lead-up to and on the day is examined carefully to see what happened. I’m sure there were things done well and things that could have been done better.

“I feel that that’s the least we owe to the victims, to learn those lessons and pass it on so that others will benefit.”

Commemorative and personal statements are set to be made during inquiry hearings next January.

Mr Gallagher said he expects these to be “extremely difficult and painful” for the victims and survivors.

“Those will take statistics and turn them into real people. It encompassed everybody from grandmothers and grandfathers to unborn children, and I think that will send a message to people about how important it is that we have answers about what happened in Omagh,” he said.

“It will be extremely difficult and painful for those that decide to share publicly their experience – after the bomb, that was one of the only things that people felt they had left, their privacy. But I think now is the time to go out and put a face to that statistic. It was a real person affected, and their family, friends and wider family circle.”