Ulster Unionist Party leader Jon Burrows MLA has urged Irish Justice Minister Jim O'Callaghan TD to reconsider his decision against an inquiry into the diversion of Irish Industrial Explosives (IIE) products to terrorists during the Troubles. Burrows has sent him a research paper containing evidence he says remains unaddressed by the Government's response.

Burrows said: "The Minister's position is that IIE explosives turning up in Northern Ireland does not show any failure by the State to stop them being diverted. I don't believe that stands up against the records, so I have put those records in front of him.

"Start with the scale. The Minister's own letter says IIE was sending 15 tons of explosives a week into Northern Ireland and had around 60% of the market here. Yet when the UK's Chief Inspector of Explosives visited Enfield in 1972, he put the plant's annual gelignite production at 32 tons. Those two figures do not sit easily together and they need explaining. Any inquiry also has to go beyond the factory gates, to how these explosives were transported, sold and stored at licensed mines and quarries.

"The warnings were there from the very start. In November 1971 the Dáil was told of seven gelignite raids in little over two months. That September, more than 2,400 lbs of explosives had been taken from Drogheda Cement Company. In the Seanad, Professor Kelly went as far as calling for production to be halted for a year. I want to know what the Government did with those warnings, and whether it was anywhere near enough. "Nor did the problem go away. Irish Government files show that in 1975, 1,282 lbs of undyed IIE explosives were recovered in Northern Ireland, around 62% of the recorded total. The records carry on through to 1986, and in those examined for 1981 and 1982, virtually all of the gelignite recovered or defused was identified as IIE. That is more than ten years after the alarm was first raised in the Dáil.

"This is not just about gelignite either. A 1974 file refers to forensic analysis of around 50,000 lbs of ANFO recovered from three illegal plants in the Republic. An inquiry has to look at how the IRA got hold of commercial explosives and the materials to make its own."

He added: "Let me be clear about what we are saying and what we are not. This is not an allegation against IIE as it is today, its owners or its staff. Nor are we claiming every bomb can be traced back to Enfield. Finding IIE explosives in forensic records is not the same as proving how each consignment reached terrorists, and establishing that is exactly what an inquiry is for."

The UUP leader has called on the minister to reconsider establishing a full, independent statutory public inquiry and to respond to the evidence in the paper.

"This cuts across departments, agencies and both sides of the border. It is about what the authorities knew, when they knew it, what they shared and whether the safeguards actually worked. A departmental review cannot answer those questions with the independence or public confidence they deserve. An inquiry that can open the original files and hear from witnesses can," he said.

A copy of the letter was also sent to the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland.