The bombing of Kay's Tavern was carried out by loyalist extremists, most probably associated with the Mid-Ulster UVF. Some assistance must have been obtained from Belfast loyalists regarding the theft of the bomb car a red Mark II Cortina stolen from a street in Belfast at 9.15 on the morning of December 19th and fitted with false number plates which bore the number allocated to a Bedford bus owned by a man in Tullamore. The plates were not made in the Republic.

It is likely that the attack was carried out on the initiative of a group largely consisting of UVF members, possibly without the sanction of the UVF leadership.

On the same night as the Dundalk bombing, a bomb and gun attack took place at Donnelly's Bar in Silverbridge in Armagh in which three people were killed. While the Inquiry was not given access to the RUC investigation file they had no reason to dispute the conclusion of the Gardai investigating the Dundalk bombing that the two attacks were linked.

In the light of information available to it and in consideration of John Weir's background and character, the Inquiry accepts Weir's claim that the Dundalk bomb did not come from James Mitchell's farm in Glenanne. However, the Inquiry believes that the attacks on Dundalk and Silverbridge were co-ordinated; that those who carried out the Silverbridge attack came from the 'Glenanne group' and therefore that the members of that group must at least have known in advance of the plan to attack Dundalk. Given that the information available to the Inquiry suggests the involvement of some members of the security forces in the Silverbridge attack, this implies that the security forces may or should have known who was responsible for the Dundalk bombing.

The facts and circumstances of the bombing lead automatically to the suspicion that certain Loyalist subversives from Mid-Ulster were involved. However, the best efforts of the Gardai and the Inquiry have not obtained the quality of information to arrive at a conclusion that those individuals were involved, even as a matter of probability. Taking into account also the intelligence relating to the farm of James Mitchell at Glenanne was not included in the intelligence provided to the Gardai in January 1976 by the RUC, a suspicion remains that contemporary actions were designed to limit information relating to security forces collusion in terrorist activity from reaching the public domain, which in turn did nothing to counteract such activity.

Without proof as to who was involved in the bombing, allegations of collusion are impossible to prove or disprove. What can be said is the following: (a) The group of Loyalist extremists based around Mitchell's farm at Glenanne contained members of the RUC and UDR, some of whom probably knew of the plan to attack Dundalk, even if they took no part themselves; (b) The security forces in NI knew that Mitchell's farm was the centre for illegal activities as early as January, 1976 and probably for some time before that. Yet, these activities were allowed to continue unhindered until the arrest of William McCaughey and others in December,1978; (c) The Inquiry believes that by their attitudes towards Loyalist violence and towards violent members of their own forces, some senior members allowed a climate to develop in which Loyalist subversives could believe that they could attack with impunity. However, there is no evidence that senior members of the security forces were in any way involved in the bombing; (d) Some of those suspects of the bombings - notably Robin Jackson and the Young brothers - were reliably said to have had relationships with British Intelligence and / or RUC Special Branch officers. It is reasonable to assume that exchanges of information took place. It is therefore possible that the assistance provided to the Garda investigation team by the security forces in the North was affected by a reluctance to compromise those relationships in the interests of securing further information in the future. But any such conclusion would require very cogent evidence. No such evidence is in the possession of the Inquiry. There remains a deep suspicion that the investigation into the bombing was hampered by such factors, but it cannot be put further than that.

The forensic evidence is inconclusive, but the nature of the explosives used does suggest a possible link between the perpetrators of the Dublin, Monaghan, Dundalk and Castleblayney bombings.