The minister for justice in the 1973-77 coalition, Mr Patrick Cooney, has strongly rejected the conclusions of the Barron report that the Government showed little interest in the Dublin and Monaghan bombings and failed to help the Garda investigation.
In a lengthy statement yesterday, Mr Cooney disputes the suggestion that the government of the day did not show enough concern about the bombings.
He also rejects suggestions that the government failed to give gardaí information they had received politically; did not give political assistance to the investigation, and may have intervened to have the investigation ended prematurely.
While the Barron report found no evidence to justify collusion between members of the security forces in the North and the loyalist bombers, it was strongly critical of Garda mistakes and an apparent lack of concern by the then government in relation to the matter.
The Oireachtas Committee on Justice is to hold public hearings on the report beginning in late January.
Mr Cooney yesterday became the third minister from that administration to contest the report's criticisms which he says are "without substance".
The then minister for foreign affairs, Dr Garret FitzGerald, wrote in The Irish Times on Saturday that the judge had reached "incorrect conclusions" and Dr Conor Cruise O'Brien, then minister for posts and telegraphs, said last weekend that the judge was "naïve" in some of his findings.
Mr Cooney pointed out that the taoiseach, Mr Liam Cosgrave, had strongly condemned the bombing and called on all citizens to help the Garda investigation. He and Mr Cosgrave visited the injured in hospital and the Scheme of Compensation for Personal Injuries Criminally Inflicted was available to the injured and bereaved.
In his 300-page report, Mr Justice Barron criticised the Mr Cosgrave for failing to pass to the gardaí information about suspects it had received from the then British prime minister, Mr Harold Wilson, However, Mr Cooney yesterday echoed the statement of Dr FitzGerald that this information was already known to the Garda and the Army.
He also rejects the suggestion that the government more generally did not give political assistance to the Garda investigation. There had been no request from the Garda for political assistance, he said, and the Garda was the only body to know if such assistance would be useful.
He says there was no complaint from the Garda about lack of co-operation from the Northern side of the Border.
"The allegation that the government failed to apply political pressure is totally without foundation."
Mr Cooney says he had several meetings with Mr Justice Barron, who was investigating the bombings in the context of persistent claims that there was collusion between members of the security forces in Northern Ireland and the loyalists who planted the bombs, killing 33 people.
However, he complains that the judge never put to him any reasons to sustain the allegation that the Garda investigation into the attacks was ended for political reasons.
Mr Cooney had written to the judge asking for any such reasons to be put to him "in the interest of natural justice". He also says a request from him to see sections of the draft report relevant to him or the government before its publication was refused by the judge.
In a general comment on the report, he says it "should be regarded with circumspection for much of its reasoning is opaque and it relies excessively on hypotheses, as it is forced to because its subject happened so long ago."