If Barron had reported a few years after the bombings, there would have been resignations at top level, writes Mark Brennock
Files are lost, witnesses have died. Twenty-nine years on, Mr Justice Barron's report has been unable to reach a definitive conclusion about what level of help the Dublin and Monaghan bombers received from the North's security forces.
The most malign scenario has always been that the Dublin and Monaghan bombings were the outcome of a carefully planned operation carried out with the support and approval of senior figures in the security services, possibly even with the knowledge and consent of individuals within the British government, and that there was a subsequent cover-up.
The Barron report finds that on the evidence before it, the involvement of the authorities - as opposed to individual RUC or UDR members - is not proven, not a probability, and must remain only a suspicion. However, the report's findings suggest major flaws in the Garda investigation, a lack of political support for the investigation from the Liam Cosgrave-led Fine Gael/Labour coalition and routine collusion between security forces and loyalist paramilitaries at local level.
The Garda investigation was slow, incomplete and botched in important respects, it says.
The Fine Gael/Labour government of the time appears to have "made no efforts to assist the investigation" politically.
Collusion between security force members and loyalist paramilitaries at local level was so endemic that the distinctions between the legal and illegal defenders of Northern Ireland were blurred. Even in the context of Mr Justice Barron's inquiry, information from the British side has come slowly and with significant gaps.
The judge says it is likely that UDR and RUC members participated in or were aware of the preparations for the Dublin and Monaghan bombings. It is possible that this fact was covered up at a higher level. A number of suspects had "relationships" with British intelligence or RUC Special Branch. It would be "neither fanciful nor absurd" to find that members of the security forces could have been involved in the bombings themselves.
However, Mr Justice Barron draws an important distinction between collusion by individual members of the security forces, and collusion by the authorities. Whatever about local collusion, he says, there is insufficient evidence to suggest that senior members of the security forces were involved in any way. He does not accept the contention that at the time loyalist paramilitaries were incapable of carrying out such an attack. It is possible, he said, that they could have sourced the explosives, made the bombs and managed the planting of the devices without assistance. He noted that there were a number of ex-British soldiers in the loyalist groups anyway.
But the report accepts as fact the long-held nationalist contention that at local level, loyalist paramilitaries received regular assistance from individuals in the security forces.
"The rise of the loyalist paramilitary groups led to collaboration between them and elements of the security forces on the basis that both had a common goal - the defeat of the PIRA," the judge says. It operated to such an extent among local RUC and UDR members that "no firm line of definition between some members of those forces and the loyalist paramilitaries could be discerned". The appalling vista - that there was senior political, military or police sanction of the worst day of killing in the history of the Troubles - is not proven, does not appear probable at this stage, and must remain a suspicion, he says.
"Ultimately a finding that there was collusion between the perpetrators and the authorities in Northern Ireland is a matter of inference. On some occasions an inference is irresistible or can be drawn as a matter of probability. Here, it is the view of the inquiry that this inference is not sufficiently strong. It does not follow even as a matter of probability. Unless further information comes to hand, such involvement must remain a suspicion. It is not proven."
Nevertheless, the assistance provided by the North's security forces to the Garda investigation at that time may have been limited by a reluctance to compromise their relationships with some of the suspects.
The inquiry found no evidence that the Garda inquiry was wound down as a result of political interference. "However, the government of the day failed to show the concern expected of it. Information given to the government to the effect that the British authorities had intelligence naming the bombers was not followed up".
The most intriguing questions concern the inaction of the Dublin government in response to information given at a political level by the British government concerning the suspects. On September 11th, 1974, four months after the bombing, the then British prime minister told the Taoiseach, according to minutes prepared by the Irish government, that the perpetrators of the Dublin bombings had been interned. Two months later at a meeting in Dublin, the British prime minister repeated this. The British minutes of these meetings say the same information was conveyed, by the prime minister at one meeting and by the then northern secretary, Mr Merlyn Rees, at the other.
Yet there was no follow through. The government does not appear to have pursued this at the meeting, nor did it seek names, ask about the evidence justifying the internment or pass this information on to the minister for justice, the Garda commissioners or any of their staff. The absence of any follow up "strongly suggests that the Irish government made no efforts to assist the investigation into the Dublin and Monaghan bombings at a political level".
If this report came within a few years of the bombings, rather than 29 years later, there would be resignations at top level. The Garda investigation that did take place was "doomed from the start", the report says. The Garda felt it could not offer the RUC support in its investigations, therefore it felt constrained in asking for RUC assistance. The Garda investigation, such as it was, failed to make full use of the information it had received.
There was no dedicated forensic laboratory, and forensic analysis was "fatally flawed" by the delay in getting samples to a laboratory, and the way in which they were handled and stored. Garda records of forensic evidence have been lost. Gardaí did not follow up information on possible names of suspects. Files have been lost, albums of suspect photographs are missing. No assistance was sought by the Garda from the government, and as stated earlier, no assistance was given.
But the main failure of the Garda team was not to act promptly, according to the report. Information on the movement of suspects was not sought for months. They failed to appreciate the extent of the information they had obtained, they accepted information too readily and Garda requests for information from the RUC were too vague. There is "no obvious reason" why the RUC was not asked to conduct inquiries.
The report is clear about the judge's frustration about the dearth of information from the British authorities. While the correspondence with the Northern Ireland Office had "undoubtedly produced some useful information", this was limited by the reluctance to release information.
The Oireachtas Committee on Justice will start public hearings in late January. It will call witnesses who spoke to Mr Justice Barron, but the chairman, Mr Seán Ardagh, said yesterday he was not expecting to unearth new evidence, not can his committee make findings.
The suspicion is likely to remain unproven. But in the minds of those who hold it, it will remain a suspicion.