WITH less than two months before Enniskillen marks the 30th anniversary of the 1987 Remembrance Day bomb, Fermanagh and Omagh District Council has yet to decide what role it will play in commemorating one of Fermanagh’s darkest days in history.
Plans for a ‘Decade of Commemorations Working Group’ to be set up in order to consider what the council’s involvement should entail were referred back to committee when a report by the Director of Community, Health and Leisure came before this month’s full council meeting.
The report titled ‘Decade of Commemorations Working Group (Revised)’ advised members that the council had previously formed the cross party Remembering and Commemoration Events Working Group in 2015 to manage its involvement with the centenary events linked to 1916 and held last year.
The group met on July of this year to conclude the work around the events and activities it supported.
During this meeting the working group felt that there had been “many positive and beneficial outcomes” to the work it had conducted.
And given that there were “still some centenaries in the Decade of Commemorations (1912 - 1922) to take place”, it would be beneficial for the council to have a similar arrangement for events associated with these going forward.
The Work Group was also conscious of significant forthcoming anniversaries of the Enniskillen (30 years) and Omagh (20 years) bombs.
“The Working Group wishes to propose that a Decade of Commemorations Working Group is formed by the council using the membership and structure of the Remembering and Commemoration Events Working Group as a basis,” the report clearly stated.
It noted that the Remembering and Commemoration Events Working Group is a cross party working group which is “representative of the council”.
It proposed that a Decade of Commemoration Working Group should be formed up until March 31, 2023.
The report also noted that a “financial resource (per annum) will be necessary for the council to support these anniversaries”. 
It added that this resource would be considered at the first meeting of the Working Group and a report would be brought to the council.
All recommendations in the report including that the Decade of Commemorations Working Group be set up using the membership and structure of the previous commemoration events working group were brought before the full council meeting last week.
It has now been referred back to committee for further consideration.