THE 30th anniversary of the Birmingham pub bombings should be marked by an IRA apology for the deaths of the 21 victims, a senior Sinn Fein official told The Times yesterday.

The IRA has never admitted responsibility for the bombs that ripped through the Mulberry Bush and the Tavern in the Town pubs on the night of November 21, 1974. There was a vague telephone warning, but both pubs were crowded when the devices exploded. Nearly 200 people were injured.

The bombings led to the introduction of the Prevention of Terrorism Act — described by Roy Jenkins, then the Home Secretary, as “draconian” — and the wrongful convictions of the Birmingham Six.

The possibility of an admission of responsibility and an apology has been discussed in recent weeks by leading republicans involved in the peace process. “This process does require that people step forward and accept responsibility,” a senior source said.

“Republicans view truth recovery as one of the essential elements of conflict resolution and it applies across the board.” Asked if an apology would now be appropriate, he said: “The straightforward answer is ‘yes’.”

Relatives of the victims and survivors of the bombings will attend a memorial service at the Anglican cathedral in Birmingham on Sunday. The Roman Catholic Archbishop of Birmingham, the Most Rev Vincent Nichols, will deliver a sermon on the importance of reconciliation and forgiveness.

The Dean of Birmingham, the Very Rev Gordon Mursell, said: “It would make a huge difference to the families and relatives if the people responsible felt able to accept responsibility and ask forgiveness.”

Last month, the IRA issued a “statement of regret” for the murder of Bernard Teggart, a 15-year-old Belfast boy with a mental age of 8, who was shot in 1973 because terrorists believed that he was a police informer. In July 2002 it offered apologies to all “non-combatants” killed during the Troubles and spoke of its “past mistakes”. But there is resistance in republican circles to making an apology for the bombings.

The republicans and the Rev Ian Paisley’s Democratic Unionist Party were due to be handed proposals from the British and Irish governments yesterday at talks aimed at breaking the political stalemate.

But with the DUP still refusing to enter direct negotiations with Sinn Fein before full IRA decommissioning, a deal seems unlikely.

Mitchel McLaughlin, one of Sinn Fein’s negotiating team, said that if the DUP was not prepared to share power in a devolved executive the two governments should run the province jointly.

However, Tony Blair told MPs: “I hope over the next few days — it may be a little longer — on the republican side there is an end to violence and on the Unionist side, if that is so, there is an acceptance that power-sharing is possible.”

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