The Murder of Seamus Ludlow in County Louth, May 1976. Towards a public inquiry?

The Ludlow Family Response to the Barron Report.

Press Release on behalf of the Ludlow family issued on 5 November 2005.

Now that we have had the opportunity to consider the report of Mr Justice Barron published on 3rd November, we wish to make the following statement.

The Ludlow family wish to thank Mr Justice Barron and his staff for the painstaking work over the last number of years. It is clear that he was confronted with considerable obstruction from powerful sources. His report however has been a successful first step to establishing truth an achieving justice for our family. His findings have exposed what the family have known for many years, that there are disturbing unanswered questions of the utmost gravity in this case.

We are dismayed that despite his report being published we have still not received an apology from An Garda Siochana. This is particularly disappointing given that the then Commissioner Byrne acknowledged to Mr Justice Baron by letter dated 10 January 2003 that the main responsibility and blame lay with them. Given that some family members are of advanced years it was unnecessarily cruel to withhold an apology then and remains so now. We will have to consider other remedies.

We will of course co-operate with the Joint Oireachtas committee and will make a detailed submission to them. We will however stress that given the seriousness of the matters disclosed by Mr Justice Barron that what is required is a full sworn public inquiry with powers to compel witnesses and search for a seize evidence. We do not believe the committee itself can perform this function, particularly in the light of the Supreme Court decision in 2002 in the Abbeylara case.

The inquiry we seek should be established promptly and requested to perform its task as swiftly as possible. Such an inquiry would establish the facts surrounding the issues of great public concern that have come to light,

We note the comments of retired Commissioner Laurence Wren. Given our experience of the last three decades we believe that everyone should be given  the opportunity to publicly defend their good name as he wishes to do, and could do in the inquiry we seek.

Ends.

Copyright © 2006 the Ludlow family. All rights reserved.