No justice for the forgotten

Tony Blair's statements since the London bombings make clear there will be no safe hiding place for terrorists. Yet he has refused to provide access to crucial files on the 1974 Dublin and Monaghan bombings, and suspicion of British involvement remains.

'We will not rest until the bombers are caught," Tony Blair announced in July in the aftermath of the London suicide bombings. And scarcely a month has passed since then without some similar Churchillian pronouncement.

"We will not give an inch", he vowed in August, while in September he said, "the rules of the game have changed". Statements intended to make clear the world has altered and there is no longer any safe hiding place for terrorists or those who harbour them.

Yet Blair refuses to hand over details of Britain's involvement in the Dublin and Monaghan bombings, despite past pledges of full co-operation with the inquiry into what still remains – even after Omagh – the single greatest atrocity of the Troubles.

As Justice for the Forgotten, the group formed by the survivors and the bereaved, prepare to take their case to the European Court of Human Rights, they're worried more about state terrorism than Blair's British Bulldog act. They want Britain to hold an official inquiry, a murder hunt for "the mastermind(s) behind the bombings", like the one currently being being conducted into the London carnage.

The 1974 no-warning bombs detonated so efficiently that there was no residue left to trace back to the source. On 17 May, 400lbs of explosives were driven south in three hijacked or stolen cars. The bombs went off within minutes of each other during a Friday evening rush hour, exacerbated by a strike at Dublin Bus. They killed 26 people and reduced the centre of Dublin to a battlefield. The first exploded at 3.30 pm on Parnell Street and less than a minute later another detonated on Talbot Street, while the third went off on South Leinster Street.

Ninety minutes later in Monaghan, the fourth device killed seven people, bringing the death toll to 33 and making it the greatest loss of life in a single day in the course of the Troubles. Almost 300 were injured, but there was no national day of mourning and compensation to the victims was paltry. The Garda investigation petered out about three months later, despite having the names of 20 suspects within weeks of the bombs.

Twenty years afterwards, an investigation by Yorkshire TV and a later Primetime documentary established strong arguments in support of the "suspicion" that British Military Intelligence was involved. The Ulster Volunteer Force subsequently attempted to claim sole responsibility for the bombings.

In the absence of Britain's promised co-operation with his inquiry, Mr Justice Henry Barron found that, while there was no conclusive proof, there were grounds for suspecting the bombers had had help from members of the British security services. Viewed in this light, Blair's failure to provide access to the relevant files undermines not only those who insist there is no conclusive evidence of British involvement; it also dishonours the victims, the survivors and relatives of all paramilitary violence, including those servicemen and women who died in the line of duty.

We now have a fuller picture of the background against which this seemingly state-sanctioned slaughter took place. At a time of political turmoil in Northern Ireland where unionists had called a general strike against the power-sharing Sunningdale agreement, a fierce turf war was taking place within the British intelligence community: MI5 (home security) was determined to prosecute the war against the IRA, while MI6 (the secret intelligence service) was beginning to incline towards a political solution to end the violence.

But had Britain previously bombed Dublin? On 1 December 1972, the Dáil was debating the Offences Against the State (Amendment) Bill, which proposed that a conviction of IRA membership could be secured on the sworn testimony of a Garda Superintendent. With Fine Gael unsure how to vote and Labour set to oppose it, the bill seemed destined for defeat.

Shortly before the crucial Dáil debate was due to take place, bombs exploded at Liberty Hall and Sackville Place, killing two CIE workers and injuring scores of civilians. News quickly reached the chamber and it was assumed the IRA were responsible. Fine Gael abstained and the bill was carried. In British Military Intelligence: the Double-Edged Sword author Don Mullan notes that, in the following year, Taoiseach Jack Lynch is reported to have said that both he and the Irish Cabinet had a "suspicion" that the bombs had been the work of British intelligence.

Last week al Qaida became the third group to claim the London bombings, the announcement coupled with the customary gloating over the indefensible slaughter of innocent civilians. These claims are rightly greeted with disgust and outrage by the public and press. However, following the 1974 bombs, the press officer of the Ulster Workers' Council (the UDA's Sammy Smith) declared, "I am very happy about the bombings in Dublin. There is war with the Free State now and we are laughing at them".

In the aftermath of the London bombings, newspapers headlines around the world declared "We're all Londoners now". If so, is it really to much to ask that we might "all become Dubliners", long enough to pressurise Blair into providing access to the files to establish whether there was British involvement in the 1974 bombings?