Keating gives 'real reason' why 1974 bombing investigation ended

A former member of the 1974 cabinet has questioned whether senior gardaí would have so quickly discontinued the investigation into the Dublin and Monaghan bombings without consulting their superiors outside the force.

Mr Justin Keating, the former Labour Party minister for industry and commerce, said senior officers would have been clever people and much shrewder and more discreet than many politicians of the day. "Of course they wouldn't want to get out of step," he said.

The Garda investigation into the bombings of May 1974 was wound down within weeks of the atrocity which claimed the lives of 33 people and remains the biggest unsolved murder in the history of the State. He said he believed the "real reason" the Garda investigation was not more thoroughly pursued related to a hang-over at the time from the arms trial. If suspects for the 1974 bombings were ever extradited here, there would be pressure to extradite suspected republican terrorists from the Republic across the Border.

If this happened "so much would come out at the trial" that there would be an "immense sense of outrage". These revelations may have proven so damaging as to make the Republic "ungovernable".

Mr Keating was addressing the penultimate session of a sub-committee of the Oireachtas Committee on Justice which will decide in the next week whether there should be a public tribunal of inquiry into the Dublin and Monaghan bombings.

He was unaware of the existence of a cabinet sub-committee on security when he was a minister. He had no recollection of that committee ever reporting to cabinet and believed some ministers, including himself, were deliberately "bypassed" by that committee because they did not share the same political philosophy as other ministers.

As to the contention that there was no collusion in the bombings between loyalist terrorists and the British security forces Mr Keating said: "I would find that so unlikely as to be unthinkable."

Meanwhile, the Justice For The Forgotten group, which is made up of survivors of the attack and the relatives of those who died, has said it is confident the sub-committee will recommend the establishment of a tribunal into the bombings.

Ms Margaret Urwin, secretary of the group, said even if the British do not allow any tribunal full access to files, it would not make such an inquiry redundant.