The husband of one of the victims of the Omagh bombing has said he does not trust the Irish Government and does not believe it will co-operate with the UK public inquiry into the atrocity.
Kevin Skelton was in the Co Tyrone town shopping with his wife Philomena, 39, known to her family as Mena, and their three daughters on the day of the explosion.
He described his wife as "a homebird" who was dedicated to her family.
He was in a shop next door to where she was when the bomb exploded and found her body in the rubble.
Their daughters Paula, Tracey and Shauna were all injured. Their son was not with them as he had gone fishing.
Mr Skelton told the inquiry in the Strule Arts Centre in Omagh that he saw things that day that no person should see and cannot forget them.
"The things that stay with me. The smell of burning flesh, I can't get it out of my head, the cries of people. Nobody asked if you were a Protestant or a Catholic or anything else," he said.
Mr Skelton recalled that after police officers had started evacuating the town centre after a bomb warning, one of his daughters pointed to a Vauxhall Cavalier parked at the bottom of Market Street and said she wondered "if the bomb is in that car".
A warning from the dissident republican group, the Real IRA, had claimed a bomb had been left outside the courthouse in the town, so people were evacuated away from that area and down Market Street to where the car bomb had actually been left.
Mr Skelton told the inquiry he did not believe there was a bomb, but a short time later a 500lb device in the Vauxhall Cavalier his daughter had pointed to exploded.
After the explosion he walked out of the shop he had been in next door to where his wife had been shopping. He said he found Mena "lying face down in the rubble" and felt for a pulse, but there was none.
Fearing that one his daughters might be buried beneath his wife, he frantically dug through the rubble.
He recalled the traumatic impact of not being able to open his wife's coffin due to the severity of her injuries because he wanted to protect their children, and said that had deprived him of the chance to say goodbye.
The Irish Government has refused to establish its own inquiry into the attack but insisted it will co-operate fully with the public inquiry established by the British government.
Stating that all he wants "is the truth", Kevin Skelton said he does not trust the Irish Government.
"I don’t see them playing ball with this inquiry and if they don’t, then it’s dead in the water because at the end of the day the bomb was made in the south, the people who built the bomb were from the south, the car was stolen in the south, the car was driven from the south and planted in Omagh and them boys drove back home again and there’s some of them of still walking the streets," he said.
Omagh bomb took mother 'in brutal manner', inquiry hears
The family of a mother of four killed in the Omagh bombing has told a public inquiry that their world was shattered by her murder in August 1998.
Veda Short, 56, was one of three members of staff at Watterson's clothes shop to die in the explosion after they were evacuated following the bomb alert.
In a statement read to the inquiry by a solicitor, her family described her as a loving mum, wife and grandmother who never had a bad word to say about anyone.
The night before she was killed, Veda had visited her daughter Elaine in hospital as she had given birth to her fourth child, Lee. She never got to see or hold him again.
"Our world was shattered on the 15th of August 1998," the family said in a statement read by solicitor Conor Cullen as her four children watched the hearings in Omagh’s Strule Arts Centre by video link.
"Our loving mother was taken from us in such a brutal manner. We never got the chance to say goodbye or see her grow old or take care of her as she had done for us.
"Our dad was a broken man from that day on. His whole world had just collapsed, and he had nothing left to live for. We lost both our parents that awful day."
They said their father became depressed and ill and died six years after the bombing, in June 2004, aged 64.
"Another tragedy of the Omagh bomb," the statement added.
Read more:
Watch: Inquiry into Omagh bombing under way
Omagh inquiry: The victims remembered
Inquiry chair Alan Turnbull said: "It is obvious that Mrs Short's death caused a terrible loss to her family.
"Particularly so perhaps to her husband. Their children rightly say that after his own untimely death, their father was another casualty of the Omagh bombing."
Young life 'so cruelly taken'
This afternoon, a statement from the family of 15-year-old Lorraine Wilson spoke of a young life "so cruelly taken" and gave an account of their harrowing wait for news after hearing the explosion and seeing "a large dark plume fill the air".
The teenager had been working in the town's Oxfam shop and she died alongside her friend and colleague Samantha McFarland.
Her mother Anne, brother Colin and sister Denise were in the inquiry room as the statement was read by the family’s solicitor Beth McMullan.
It said the family had spent hours praying and hoping that she was alive after not being able to find her in the town, the hospital or a leisure centre where the dead and injured were being taken.
"We watched as other families were told of the death of their loved ones and were being taken to the morgue to identify their loved ones," the statement said.
"I remember dad saying surely there has to be some light at the end of the tunnel? He was holding onto the hope that he would see his daughter again."
But a short time later, the family was told they were being taken to the morgue to identify Lorraine’s body.
The statement recounted how the teenager’s mother Anne could not cope and left the room screaming while other family members "held Lorraine’s hand, hugged her, touched her hair, told her how much we loved her".
It added: "There was a little pool of blood in Lorraine’s eye and I remember dad asking for a tissue to collect the little pool of blood and he said 'this is all I have of you now'."
The statement revealed that Lorraine had been buried in her mother’s wedding dress.
'Now I am her voice'
The twin brother of Julia Hughes described her loss as insurmountable.
In a statement read to the inquiry by a solicitor for the inquiry, Justin Hughes said his sister and he had been born just four minutes apart and had "an unbreakable bond".
"She was my twin and now I am her voice," it said.
Julia was studying for a degree in accountancy at Dundee University in Scotland and was home working in a shop during the summer holidays when she was killed, a year before she was due to graduate.
"Julia's loss was insurmountable for our family," the statement said.
"It shattered our very being, both as a family and individually. Life was never the same again.
"The loss was too much for our beloved grandma and she passed away shortly after Julia's death with what could only be considered as a broken heart."
It added: "We never got to share with her so many precious milestones in life, like her graduating, getting married and having children. The what ifs will always be there. After 26 years it gets no easier."
The inquiry was told that Dundee University presented her family with Julia's accountancy degree the year after she was killed and dedicated an annual prize in memory of her to a student who has overcome difficulties and adversity and gone on to excel in their field of study.
Her twin brother Justin awarded the prize to the winner in 2023.
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