An attempt to have the Omagh bomb £15 million compensation case thrown out on legal grounds was rejected in the Court of Appeal in Belfast yesterday.
Two of the five defendants - Colm Murphy and Séamus Daly - claimed the case should not be allowed to proceed because of alleged irregularities by the London firm of solicitors engaged by the families of the victims. Twenty-nine people died in the "Real IRA" bombing in 1998.
Earlier Mr Justice Morgan had dismissed an application by Murphy and Daly to strike out the claim, and yesterday his decision was upheld by three appeal judges.
Lord chief justice Sir Brian Kerr said one of the grounds advanced on behalf of Murphy and Daly was that the writ did not comply with court rules because the London legal firm of H20 had not a business address within Northern Ireland.
Sir Brian said a Belfast firm of solicitors had agreed to allow their offices to be used but were unwilling to be named as agents of the plaintiffs' solicitors for security reasons.
He said that if a local address was necessary, "we consider that the circumstances of the case justify our refusal to set aside the proceedings on account of that irregularity".
Sir Brian added: "Because of the nature of the case the plaintiffs have found it impossible to engage solicitors in Northern Ireland.
"To require the present solicitors to establish business premises here simply to secure technical compliance with the rules would not be in the interests of justice."
Sir Brian, who heard the appeal with lord justices Nicholson and Sheil, added: "We are of the view that the discretion available to us is such that we can sanction the continuation of the proceedings with the technical defects that are said to obtain."