Madam, – News of the report on the McGurk pub bombing and the previous apology from the British government in relation to misinformation about this atrocity (Breaking News, February 21st) are welcome contributions to reconciliation in these islands.
However, we in the South also have some issues from the Troubles that remain unaddressed by the Irish Government. As the youngest son of Garda Richard Fallon, for many years I have been seeking an inquiry into the circumstances around the shooting dead of my father while on duty, unarmed, in April 1970. It is my belief that my father’s murder was a crucial event in the Arms Trial chronology.
Last year I made contact with the recently formed Serious Crime Review Team, which met with me in September of 2010 and agreed to review the case file. Imagine then my subsequent shock to be informed by the unit that the review cannot proceed as the investigation part of the file of my father’s case has gone missing.
The cold case unit had requested the file but have yet to be notified of its whereabouts by the office of the Garda Commissioner which is responsible for the file.
If I had any doubt prior to this occurrence about the provenance of files connected to my father’s case now I can only guess at the depth of incompetence and/or cover-up that has gone on in the past 40 years. He was a servant of the Irish Constitution and a man dedicated to preserving peace in the community and went to work in all innocence unaware of the imminent outcome of the corruption and political manoeuvring going on all around him.
Despite the apparent loss of a file related to a capital offence, the Government still refuses to investigate the litany of worrying circumstances surrounding this matter. Additionally, it is to be hoped that the murder of my father in a laneway in Dublin city centre would receive the same attention in our media as events in Northern Ireland. – Yours, etc,