Secretary of State visits site of Omagh bomb

THE North’s Secretary of State, Chris Heaton-Harris, said he ‘became emotional’ during a visit to the site of the Omagh bomb and the nearby Memorial Garden in the town today (Wednesday) afternoon.

It came ahead of his upcoming decision on whether to hold a new investigation into the 1998 Market Street atrocity in which 31 people were killed.

Mr Heaton-Harris spent just under an hour with Michael Gallagher and Stanley McCombe, both relatives of victims of the bomb.

He said, “I wanted to come and see the town, and it’s a powerful story. I have to take proper advice; there are legal things which I have to go through, and at some point in January I will be making a decision.

“I always find these things actually quite emotional. I find it very difficult to hide emotion. This happened in my lifetime, and I can remember distinctly pretty much everything about it (the bomb).

“Meeting family members killed is probably one of the toughest bits of my job, to be quite frank, and coming here and seeing the beautiful gardens, which are a great way of remembering the people who died in a terrible atrocity.

“Everywhere can recover from a terrible atrocity, but it will always reside in peoples’ memories.”

Mr Gallagher, who lost his son Aiden (21) in the attack, said the Secretary of State’s visit to the bomb site had been a ‘powerful statement’.

“We re-enforced, again, that we do need a public inquiry, and the facts of what happened before the bomb, and during the bomb, and just hope that the Secretary of State will deliver at the end of January,” he said.

“He has promised to come back to Omagh, and deliver that news, so we are hopeful. It was good to meet him again. He has very human qualities, and is someone who can feel the pain. We just hope that he can deliver.”

Mr Gallagher added, “We will never put what happened to the back of our minds, but there are issues there that certainly that I, Stanley and others have been engaged in for the past 24 years that we would like to see address, so that we can move on with the rest of our lives.”