Gerry Conlon has welcomed Tony Blair's public apology to him and ten others for their wrongful imprisonment for the IRA bomb attacks in Britain in 1974.
The British Prime Minister said he was very sorry that they were subject to such an injustice, and that they deserve to be completely and publicly exonerated.
Mr Blair's apology came in a television statement delivered in his room at the House of Commons before meeting the family members in private in his offices.
Gerry Conlon, a member of what became known as the Guildford Four, was freed after the Court of Appeal quashed his sentence in 1989.
His father Guiseppe, who had a history of bronchial problems, died in prison in 1980 before his name was cleared.
Annie Maguire and members of her family were jailed with Guiseppe Conlon after they were wrongly identified as being involved in the IRA bomb plots in Guildford and Woolwich.
It was not until 1991 that Guiseppe Conlon's conviction - and those of the Maguires - were finally quashed by the Court of Appeal.
Tens of thousands of people had signed a petition calling for the apology and Mr Blair had been lobbied by the Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, and the SDLP leader, Mark Durkan.
Welcoming the Prime Minister's statement, Mr Ahern said he hoped that the cloud which had hung over the Conlon and Maguire families would now finally lift.
