Gardaí and RUC were 'very close' in Omagh bomb investigation - detective

Irish police had a "very close" working relationship with the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) in the Omagh bombing investigation, the inquiry into the atrocity has heard.

Det Supt Casserly of An Garda Síochána (the Irish police force) said the response by officers in the Republic of Ireland was "immediate" and "very, very large".

His evidence was given through a pre-recorded video, gathered by the inquiry in Dublin in September.

Det Sup Casserly said the gardaí investigation started "as soon as that vehicle was identified" in relation to the car that carried the bomb.

Twenty-nine people, including a woman pregnant with twins, died in the bombing in the County Tyrone town on 15 August 1998.

It was the biggest single atrocity in the Troubles.

The inquiry has heard that the car had been stolen in Carrickmacross, County Monaghan two days before the bombing.

"The investigation was very, very large and it went on for a long period of time, decades, generating hundreds of investigative tasks and a massive amount of material," said the detective.

He outlined how an incident room had been set up immediately in Carrickmacross and moved to Monaghan town.

The inquiry heard that the gardaí had 1,077 lines of investigation, took 480 statements, carried out 92 recorded searches and made 99 arrests.

The working relationship between the RUC and the gardaí was addressed, with Det Supt Casserly saying that the two forces were "very close".

"They regularly met and there was direct communication and free flow of information between them," he said.

In the days after the bombing on 15 August 1998, house-to-house inquiries were carried out in Carrickmacross, with gardaí using a template questionnaire.

Det Supt Casserly said that there was very little CCTV available to the investigation.

"The sort of domestic systems as we know them now were virtually non-existent," he said.

"Systems in place in businesses or commercially used, while they did exist, weren't nearly to the standard or quality that we would have today, meaning that there was very, very little or no CCTV produced which was of any use to the inquiry or investigation."

The presentation of Det Supt Casserly's evidence will resume tomorrow.

Earlier in the day the inquiry heard from Kevin Kershaw, an expert in fingerprints, who outlined to the inquiry the process of gathering fingerprints at the scene of a crime.

He also referred to a report carried out in 2001 which said that debris collected from the scene, including vehicle parts, were not tested for fingerprints.

Items which were tested included telephone boxes, coins, a card, and an envelope which produced 77 finger or palm prints.

But a number were considered to have insufficient "ridge detail for purpose of comparison against suspects or databases" and only 11 sets of fingerprints were retained on the national database for future checking.

There was also discussion at the hearing over how much the RUC liaised with other police forces across the UK.

Counsel for the inquiry said there was "no document that the Police Service of Northern Ireland can point to that establishes that fingerprints relating to the Omagh bombing were sent to New Scotland Yard".

Kershaw suggested that there was a possibility that it was "sent without being documented".

But when pressed if he would expect for that process to be documented by New Scotland Yard, he replied: "Most definitely."