Editorial: Omagh was an illustration of the soft UK response to Irish republican mass murderers

​The inquiry into whether or not the Omagh bomb could have been prevented opened yesterday.​

It will start by hearing testimony of those impacted by the real IRA atrocity.

This is a reminder of the outcome of the blast, the worst of the Troubles but only one of a long line of republican terrorist car bombs in which so many civilians were slaughtered, with so few of the mass murdering perpetrators held to account.

The terms of reference of the probe seem to have been drawn in a way that will prevent this turning into a process against the security forces, as some people are happy to steer such probes.

We know the reprehensible sectarian men who carried out the massacre, such as that semi illiterate thug Colm Murphy, helped by vile thugs such as Seamus McKenna and Michael McKevitt. Only in the UK would such loathsome mass murderers be treated as softly as were these men, in the long tradition of British softness towards Irish murderers.

It will be the final betrayal of legacy if this process emerges with so much as a hint that the RUC were significantly to blame for the work of these terrorists.

Meanwhile, we have daily reminders of a parallel scandal: that of Ireland being able merely to pledge that it will “fully co-operate with the probe”, thus co-operating only as it sees fit. At the same time yesterday, Simon Harris was able to, in effect, dictate NI’s legacy structures by talking about when they will drop their legal action against the UK.

Why aren’t the Tories and Reform highlighting daily the weakness of Hilary Benn and Keir Starmer towards Ireland? The state that harboured IRA mass murderers for 30 years, by almost never extraditing them, has the audacity to sue the UK on legacy, and demands the legacy structures be reformed, which in effect means in a way that will keep the focus on UK security forces.