Northern Ireland Police Ombudsman, Ms Nuala O’Loan, is today standing by her report into the Omagh bomb.
The report, a summary of which was published yesterday, accused the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) Chief Constable Sir Ronnie Flanagan and his colleagues of flawed judgment and damaging the chances of arresting the Omagh bomb suspects.
Mr Flanagan has threatened to take legal action against Ms O’Loan to clear his name. He said: "I am astounded by these wild and sweeping conclusions". But Mrs O'Loan said: "I stand by everything".
Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Irelandprogramme this morning, Ms O'Loan said that: "The Omagh bomb investigation has not been carried out to the fullest extent; now that needs to be done and I think it needs to be done under new leadership."
She recommended "an independent senior investigative officer from outside Northern Ireland be appointed to conduct the investigation and that that investigation be properly resourced and it be given access to all material".
The report accused RUC Special Branch of failing to pass on information to officers warning of a threatened terrorist strike to take place in Omagh on the day of the car bomb.
In relation to communications between the Special Branch and the PSNI, Ms O’Loan said that: "The problem is they have no guidelines as to how they disseminate that information to the rest of the force".
"If you are investigating a criminal offence you need to do a forensic examination, you need to do scientific work, we need to do evidence gathering, you need to do intelligence analysis, it doesn’t matter if you are investigating a bomb in New York, in London or in Belfast, the principals are the same . . . The most important principal here is that you give your senior investigating officer the information and the intelligence that you have," she said.
On allegations from Mr Flanagan that he did not have enough time to respond to the report, Ms O’Loan said the Chief Constable has had the report for a fortnight and that she is still waiting for a reply from him on it.
"I think what we have to do now is to look to the response from the Secretary of State, the Police Service of Northern Ireland and from the policing board. Let’s wait and see what happens," she said.
