Sinn Fein last night supported calls for a cross- border independent inquiry into the police probe following the Omagh bomb.

Michael McHugh

Sinn Fein last night supported calls for a cross- border independent inquiry into the police probe following the Omagh bomb.

Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness said there were serious concerns about the "debacle after debacle" which plagued security force inquiries into the conflict's bloodiest atrocity.

He was speaking after a service on the 10th anniversary of the 1998 Real IRA car bombing which killed 29 people and unborn twins.

Nobody has been convicted of causing the deaths.

"The calls that are made from the families here for the establishment of an independent tribunal, they obviously have lost all faith in the police investigation and we have seen debacle after debacle," he said. "I think what we need to do is support the families in the demands that they are now making."

Families have voiced concern about alleged police failure to act quickly enough on intelligence warnings of the planned bombing.

There have also been a string of flaws in forensics handling of the investigation, highlighted in the trial of Sean Hoey, of South Armagh, who was acquitted of murder at Omagh. The families have secured support from other political parties in their quest for justice.

Mr McGuinness added: "This was a very clear attempt by whoever was behind the bomb to destroy the peace process, destroy Sinn Fein's peace strategy. Ten years on they have failed miserably."

During a moving ceremony marking the anniversary, rose petals were scattered on the ground of the busy shopping artery of Market Street where the car bomb devastated so many lives.

A crystal memorial obelisk and a "Garden of Light" with a constellation of 31 mirrors symbolising the light from 31 ended lives were unveiled.

Among the dignitaries were Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen, Northern Ireland Secretary Shaun Woodward, Northern Ireland Deputy First Minister Mr McGuinness, the Duchess of Abercorn and some of the families of those dead or injured.

Others stayed away in a row over the wording of a new memorial to the disaster.

Former Lebanon hostage Terry Waite told several thousand onlookers of the difficulty in obtaining justice. "We know that in a flawed and broken world complete justice is hardly ever experienced," he said.

"We do not live in a world where we can experience absolute justice. With justice, as with so many things in life, we frequently have to settle for something less than the absolute. It is far from easy to recognise that fact."

The hour-long ceremony began at 3pm with music from the Omagh Waterford peace choir. There followed an extract from the Omagh memorial wording remembering the "cruel evil" that stalked the streets that sunny afternoon.

There were greetings from Buncrana, in the Irish Republic, where three of the dead came from, and from Spain. Some of the children from Buncrana and Madrid had been on a joint day trip to the town.

Paula Helguero Mahon from Madrid represented the Spaniards, along with acting Spanish ambassador to London Javier Carbajosa.

Prayers were said by ministers from the main churches. At 3.10pm there was a minute's silence and peals of a church bell at the time of the blast, followed by the reading of anti-violence poem, Neither an Elegy nor a Manifesto, by John Hewitt.

At the site of the blast there were messages appealing in Irish, Spanish and English for people to remember the dead. They were read by victims' relatives John McLaughlin, father of 12-year-old Sean, Ana Abad, sister of Rocio Abbad Ramos, and Caroline Martin, sister of Esther Gibson.

US vice-counsel Susan Elliott, nationalist SDLP leader Mark Durkan, Alliance Party leader David Ford, Ulster Unionist Party deputy leader Danny Kennedy and representatives from the Northern Ireland and Irish police forces were present.

A dedication to peace was led by Omagh Anglican church minister the Rev William Seale and Catholic Msgr Joseph Donnelly.

At the site of the bomb there was bagpipe music by Drew McDermott and an Irish uilean pipe refrain by Fiona McMullan while young people from Omagh scattered petals in remembrance.

Before the service, Mr Woodward said: "The events of August 15, 1998 will forever be indelibly marked in the minds and hearts of all decent people.

"From the moment their murder happened, we have wanted to show their families and friends that we were at one with them."

Mrs McAleese praised the people of Omagh for their remarkable contribution to the consolidation of the Northern Ireland peace process.

Far from fragmenting along familiar dividing lines as they could easily have done, she said people of all persuasions embraced each other as one suffering community.

"In doing so they helped all of us to appreciate in the starkest terms just how precious the opportunity was that had just been given to us to make a new beginning, and how vital it was that we all worked together to turn that opportunity into reality," Mrs McAleese said.