Sir, - Today, as Tony Blair and John Reid visit Dublin for the British Irish Council meeting at Dublin Castle, my husband and family will be among the group protesting outside.
This time, I will not be with them - instead I will be in hospital having surgery necessitated by the serious injuries I received in the Dublin bombings of May 17th, 1974. My eye has already been removed but the effects of the injuries continue to require treatment. And of course for the 33 families who lost parents, children, sisters, brothers, wives and husbands, the pain of their loss continues. All of us who were injured or bereaved in the bombings are still faced daily with the consequences of these terrible events.
As well as the physical and emotional scars, we carry the burden of not knowing what happened and who was responsible. We are still living with the unfulfilled promises many of us have made to ourselves or to dead loved ones to discover the truth behind the events which changed all our lives irrevocably.
When, in January 2000, the Irish Government finally established an Independent Commission of Inquiry into the Dublin and Monaghan Bombings, I felt that at last we were progressing towards the truth. It was an important initial step.
Two years later, my optimism has been replaced by frustration and cynicism, as the commission's efforts appear set to be frustrated by the British Government's failure to engage with it.
The British Government promised to co-operate, but almost two years after the inquiry was established, no information or documentation whatsoever has been forwarded to the chairman of the inquiry, Mr Justice Henry Barron. The constant refrain has been that the process of searching old files is difficult and time-consuming and that "a co-ordinated response" will be made when the process is completed.
This has echoes of "It's really hard and I didn't have time to do it" - the kind of excuse a child might attempt to offer a teacher for unfinished homework. It is not a sufficient response to an independent commission of inquiry into a terrorist atrocity which killed 33 people.
In the light of the fervour Mr Blair has brought to the fight against international terrorism since September 11th, I can only feel that his government's dismal failure to co-operate with the Independent Commission of Inquiry is hypocritical in the extreme.
I would appeal to him to bring the same zeal and commitment to addressing the terrible consequences of terrorism closer to home and to face up to the responsibility his government has to the innocent victims of the bombings of Dublin and Monaghan on May 17th, 1974. - Yours, etc.,
Bernie McNally, Chairperson, Justice for the Forgotten, Gardiner Street, Dublin 1.