I am compelled to correct the very obvious glaring inaccurate reporting of the comments of Royston Brady and his father's alleged involvement in the Dublin and Monaghan Bombings of 17 May 1974 when his father's taxi was allegedly hijacked by the bomb team.

No blame can be attached to Ken Sweeney, as he obviously took the comments of Brady at face value. Yet I am cross that, again, I am forced to intervene in this situation because Brady seems oblivious to the comments he is making and the obvious hurt and anger he is causing.

Firstly, it is obvious that someone in fact hijacked the man's vehicle. This had a terrible effect on the man and his family which I can only sympathise with.

I have in my possession copies of all the witness statements given to the police during the course of the inadequate gardaí investigation in the aftermath of the atrocities and Royston Brady's father does not feature in any of them. I am happy to supply this document to any media outlet to verify this fact.

Secondly, the teams which carried out the bombings did so with complete military precision, and to hijack a vehicle in the locality of the proposed target would have been to deviate from all standard operating procedures for such operations. To suggest that they would jeopardise their operation and compromise their own security and leave a witness that could alert the authorities and equally identify them would be completely at odds with the meticulous planning that already had gone into the operation to bomb Dublin and Monaghan.

The teams that carried out the bombings had at that stage a combined murder tally of about 100 people. They shot, stabbed, kidnapped, raped and bombed innocent men, pregnant women and children. For what reason would they have left Brady's father alive when they could have been arrested and identified with a living witness? The answer is that there was no reason why they would have done this because they did not do it in the first place... To suggest that they took pity on Brady's father is meaningless. They would have simply shot him and disposed of the body until they were out of the jurisdiction.

This is the cold stark reality for Royston Brady as he appears unwilling to accept what are cold stark facts.

During that period in the mid 1970s, the Republic was in the grip of various republican splinter group feuds, the well documented Saor Eire bank robberies which resulted in various murders and shootings, as well as a general rise in criminal activity by local criminal gangs blossoming in Dublin at that period. It is more than likely that one of these groups did in fact hijack the vehicle for some kind of operation or criminal activity and abandoned it once news of the bombings started to filter out to the media

While I don't dispute that Royston Brady's father's car was hijacked by someone, I want to finally put to bed these silly stories originating from Brady that this was connected to the Dublin and Monaghan Bombings.

Edward O'Neill,

Survivor of Dublin and Monaghan Bombings.

edward@eonoil.com