New group to represent police at Omagh Bomb Inquiry

POLICE officers who were involved in the Omagh Bomb have set-up a new group ahead of the planned Public Inquiry into the 1998 atrocity which claimed the lives of 31 people, including a woman pregnant with twins.

The Omagh Bomb Inquiry Police Support Group (Omagh PSG) has been founded by individuals who were directly engaged within a policing context in the events of the bomb, which happened 25 years ago.

The group says that the individuals involved fully support the Inquiry, but they are also concerned about the impact that it will have on the welfare of former and currently serving police officers and support staff. This, they add, is through the process of recalling traumatic events, providing written and oral evidence and through press coverage which will also impact on personnel who are not directly engaged with the inquiry but who have been traumatised by the events in 1998.

A committee has been set up, with those who are part of it all cented in the vicinity of Omagh.

In August events were held to mark the 25th anniversary of the atrocity.