THE sister of a teenager killed in the Omagh bombing has said that an inquiry into the atrocity will be incomplete without full participation from the Irish Government.
Omagh High School pupil Alan Radford (16) was just days away from receiving his GCSE results when he had been in the town centre on August 15, 1998, helping his mother with the weekly shop.
He was one of 29 people who died in the Real IRA bombing.
As a new inquiry continues, Alan’s sister Claire Hayes spoke to the BBC.
Aged 15 at the time of her brother’s death, she said: “Alan was the most innocent, purest, kindest human being I have ever met in my life.
“Everything Alan done was for the purpose of others to try and make the life of somebody just that wee bit brighter, even if it was just by giving a smile or making a comment.”
Helping neighbours with babysitting and grass cutting, despite his hay fever, she added: “He had no ounce of malice in him, no hatred.”
At home when the bomb detonated, she recalled: “The explosion went off, the wall shook beneath me and I seen the puff of smoke and instantly it was like something inside me just died in that moment.”
Shortly afterwards, friends told her the bomb was supposed to have been at the courthouse but exploded in the town centre.
“That’s when panic set in for me, because I knew mum and Alan was always at that end of the town.”
Her brother had planned to open a bank account, stepping away from their mother in a shop he was last seen crossing the street towards the car containing the bomb.
Ms Hayes said she was thankful her mother didn’t see Alan’s body.
“I have always said ‘mum, you were never meant to see your son lying in the street like that with the injuries he sustained.’”
Ms Hayes said she had personal questions about everyone who had been with her brother in his last moments.
“I know there’s a lot of people who wouldn’t want to know those details, but for me, I need to know.
“It pains me so much to know that he died alone on the street in such a barbaric way, he didn’t deserve that death.”
She added: “It needs to be a sense of closure, but I am very sceptical. When the Irish government isn’t taking part it’s not a full inquiry.
“So for me, there’s already a flaw and that doesn’t give me comfort knowing that this bomb was made in the south, the car was stolen in the south, the people are from the south, they went back across the government to the south.
“And the southern government have said they will help, but they’re not compelled to do so.
“For me, for Alan, that isn’t something that I wanted. I wanted it to be complete, robust, transparent for him so we know absolutely everything.”
On Tuesday, the Tánaiste Simon Harris said during a visit to Stormont that the Irish government would cooperate in full, but that a legal mechanism was needed to hand over all documents.
Ms Hayes said nothing less than “complete disclosure” from the Irish government would do.
“Why not give us the full details, the full facts. Why not be part of this from day one?
“Find a mechanism? Just find it within yourself to go and get what we need.”
Ms Hayes said she expected the inquiry to find the bombing was preventable, but that it would be a “diluted” version of the truth.
She added that her mother (78) still feels unable to talk about the tragedy.
“She cannot go to that place, she’s never been able to. Mum suffers deeply. Alan was the wee man of our house and done so much with mum, for mum, he was very protective of her.”
On her own trauma, Ms Hayes also said she was suffering nightmares as the inquiry approached and felt like she was 15-years-old again.