Relatives and victims of the Dublin and Monaghan bombings have welcomed the recommendation of the Wilson commission that people suffering from chronic post-traumatic stress as a result of the attacks 25 years ago should receive financial support and compensation.
No cognisance had been taken of the long-term post-traumatic stress sustained and "still being suffered" by victims and relatives, Mr Greg O'Neill, solicitor for the Justice for the Forgotten committee, declared at the weekend. He was speaking at a press conference in Dublin at which he announced that a case against the British government was being brought before the European Court of Human Rights by individual victims of the bombings.
"We believe that the compensation awarded to the victims of the Dublin and Monaghan bombings should be subjected to a radical reassessment," he said.
Two committee members, Ms Martesa Kearney and Mr Paddy O'Brien, spoke afterwards about the trauma they had suffered.
Ms Kearney, a chartered accountant, was leaving her office in Talbot Street when the blast hit her. She was struck by flying glass from Lenihan's hardware store opposite: "It changed my whole life. I developed epilepsy. As an accountant, I needed a car for my job, but I had to give up driving."
Later, Ms Kearney said, her condition had necessitated neurological treatment in London, and she went there to live for a time. A doctor still visits her at home every second Tuesday and she has to attend a neurologist at Beaumont Hospital regularly: "I did not speak about this for years and years, because it [the bombing] happened only 10 days after the death of my father."
Mr Paddy O'Brien had just bought a copy of the Evening Press and was reading it, leaning against the car which contained the bomb, when it went off. He was thrown across the street and ended up with a mangled steering wheel literally stuck in his right arm.
Both spoke of the difficulties they had faced afterwards and of "the things the ordinary public never got to hear about". One man who had been putting petrol into a car in Parnell Street woke up in the Mater morgue, Mr O'Brien said. "They thought he was dead. A woman came in to clean and saw a sheet move. She ran out screaming."
Worst of all was the fact that the Dublin bomb victims had been isolated from the other patients in the hospital. "We were simply ignored and, yes, treated like lepers," Ms Kearney said. "If anyone was seen talking to us, a [special] branch man would be on his back immediately."
"A week would not go by without a visit from a detective," Mr O'Brien said. This had gone on for about nine months.
She could not figure out what was going on. "Were they using it as an excuse for something else, I asked myself. I knew practically no one there." It had been particularly hurtful, after the Warrington bomb attack, to see President Robinson going over to offer condolences to the relatives while the Dublin and Monaghan victims were forgotten - not that they did not feel enormous sympathy for the Warrington victims. "But, for us, there were no flowers, no cards, nothing."
While the committee had commended some aspects of the Wilson report, its solicitor, Mr O'Neill, was adamant that a public inquiry was necessary. "The remedy we're seeking is compensation and a rebuke to the UK government - and whatever penalty and compensation order is appropriate to each victim."
The committee was disappointed with the Wilson report's recommendation of a private investigation into the Dublin and Monaghan bombings and was demanding a full public hearing. "It's not just the victims and their relatives who have this right," Mr O'Neill said. "It is the entitlement of the people of Ireland to have the explanation as to why their fellow citizens were massacred at will. There has been a sense of an official cover-up for the past 25 years."
Mr O'Neill confirmed that the case against Britain in the European Court of Human Rights would go ahead. An earlier attempt to pursue such a case had been thrown out by the European Court because of the time which had elapsed since the bombings. But he was confident that new evidence indicating the involvement of British security forces in the bombings could not be ignored.
In the meantime, the committee intends to "exhaust all local remedies" by initiating proceedings today against the British government in the High Court.