GARDAÍ are expected to interview self-confessed IRA bomb-maker Michael Hayes about the Birmingham pub bombings.
Mr Hayes recently told the BBC that he accepted "collective responsibility" for the 1974 atrocity but did not know who planted the devices which killed 21 people.
Six people were wrongly jailed for the murders and served 16 years in prison before their convictions were quashed in 1991.
A pre-inquest review in Birmingham yesterday was told by lawyers for coroner Peter Thornton that "a request to the Irish gardaí to interview Mr Hayes" - who now lives in Dublin - had been made.
Peter Skelton, counsel to the inquests, also told the hearing: "We're discussing our involvement in any interview with West Midlands Police".
Gardaí last night confirmed it had received a request from West Midlands Police made through Interpol and "will be facilitating that request".
A West Midlands Police spokeswoman said the force was waiting for the full footage of Mr Hayes' interview to be supplied so it could be reviewed.
"Michael Hayes is outside the UK and the force is currently liaising with Crown Prosecution Service about making an application for Mr Hayes to be interviewed," she said.
A new inquest into the atrocity is scheduled to open later this year.
However, the campaign group Justice4the21, whose work brought about the fresh inquests, has announced it is boycotting the hearings.
In a statement, campaigners said they will "no longer participate" after Mr Thornton ruled out naming alleged suspects in evidence.
Lawyers for 10 families, in a joint statement, said they would try to crowd-fund a judicial review of the coroner's ruling on what is known as the perpetrator issue.
The legal team representing the family of brothers Eugene and Desmond Reilly were present for the latest inquest review hearing yesterday.
Also attending was the youngest victim Jane Davis's brother Brian Davis, from Ilkley, near Leeds.
He spoke of his "dismay" that the other families had decided not to attend but understood why.
Mr Davis, who left Birmingham in the 1980s, "absolutely" welcomed the decision to ask gardaí to interview Mr Hayes.
He told the coroner: "It seems bizarre to me that journalists and serving MPs can track down these people and name them publicly, on TV, but the police and judiciary fail to be able to do the same thing."
Heather Williams, a barrister for the Reilly brothers' loved ones, said her instructing solicitors had not had any advance notice of the other families' decision not to attend.
Speaking at the hearing, which began an hour later than planned after news of the relatives' boycott was digested, Mr Thornton said "the door will always be open".
He added: "Clearly the inquest into the deaths of the 21 who died on November 21 1974 will proceed in any event.
"I have a public duty to conduct them and was appointed by the Lord Chief Justice to do so."
