Sir Ronnie Flanagan has told the Omagh Bombing Inquiry that he feels he kept his promise to leave “no stone unturned” in the police investigation into the 1998 massacre, while expressing “deep regret” that those responsible were never caught.
The former RUC chief constable was giving evidence in Belfast at the public inquiry into the dissident republican car bombing in Omagh on August 15 1998, which killed 29 people, including a woman who was pregnant with twins. It was the worst single atrocity of the Troubles in Northern Ireland.
Evidence on investigation decisions
Counsel to the inquiry Paul Greaney KC asked Sir Ronnie about his determination after the bombing. Sir Ronnie said: “That the people responsible, in whatever capacity, be brought to justice.” When Mr Greaney noted that this had not happened, Sir Ronnie said: “It has not happened, and that is a source of the most deep regret to me.”
Sir Ronnie said he had been in his office in Belfast in August 1998 when he first heard about the explosion and immediately travelled to Omagh, wanting to show “how much these things mattered”.
Questioned about the subsequent RUC investigation, Sir Ronnie was asked if it had kept faith with his 1998 comment that “no stone would be left unturned”. He said: “I had open lines of communication to the SIO and I had made it clear to him if there was anything he needed, anything whatsoever, and if he felt he wasn’t getting it, he should make direct contact with me. No such request for additional resources or help or assistance was ever forwarded to me on those lines.”
Mr Greaney asked: “The question is sitting there now, with the knowledge of all that you know, and whatever the commitment that you made to the investigation, do you consider that the investigation, while you were chief constable, kept faith with the promise to leave no stone unturned?” Sir Ronnie said: “That’s my feeling. Yes.”
Reduction in incident room staff
Mr Greaney showed the inquiry an RUC policy log indicating that the month following the bomb, the senior investigating officer made a decision to reduce the manpower and hours of work in the incident room investigating the explosion. The barrister asked whether that reduction, six weeks and two days into the investigation, occurred with Sir Ronnie’s knowledge. Sir Ronnie said: “No, it did not.”
Asked what he would have said if the reductions had been raised with him, Sir Ronnie said: “I would have sought assurance from the SIO that he was content that the incident room could be managed effectively by these new measures.” He said he was not sure that the reduction had been shown to him or that he had picked it up.
The inquiry also heard of a November 1998 log entry showing further reductions in the size of the inquiry team. Asked if he was made aware at the time, 15 weeks and two days after the bombing, Sir Ronnie said: “No, I was not.”
Anonymous call to army camp
Earlier, Mr Greaney said he was confident the Irish Government would answer questions about an anonymous call to an army camp the day before Omagh was bombed. The inquiry has heard that the call was made to the Finner army camp in Co Donegal on August 14 and that Omagh had been mentioned.
Mr Greaney said the current evidential position appeared to be that the call referred to a need for security forces, including in Northern Ireland, to pay attention to the main route from Lough Melvin to Enniskillen, Irvinestown, and Omagh. The sergeant who spoke to the caller did not take the content seriously at the time and made no report upwards prior to the bombing.
Garda intelligence reports concluded the call had not been a warning about Omagh, but the same report included a comment indicating Omagh had been mentioned three times. The call was traced to a bar in Bundoran, with four other calls from the bar to the camp earlier the same day, the relevance of which Mr Greaney said is “unclear”.
The inquiry legal team has posed written questions to the Government of Ireland seeking clarity on the apparent tension between the various conclusions reached by An Garda Síochána about the call’s significance, and on whether any information about the call was passed to UK state authorities. Mr Greaney said it was unsurprising that the Irish Government had not yet answered, adding: “We are confident that they will do so.”
