The Catholic Church in Derry yesterday said it had no records of church payments to victims of the 1972 Claudy bombing.
A spokesman for the bishop of Derry, Dr Seamus Hegarty, said the diocese had no record of either collective or individual payments to victims.
He was responding to a claim by Ulster Unionist deputy mayor of Derry, Mary Hamilton, that she and her husband, who were both injured, were given £400 each by then-bishop Dr Neil Farren.
Mrs Hamilton, who ran a hotel in Claudy, was injured when three IRA car bombs ripped through the Co Derry village on the morning of July 31 1972, killing nine people.
Her husband, who is also a Derry city Ulster Unionist councillor and a former deputy mayor of the city, was injured as well.
She said that in the days immediately after the attack, Dr Neil Farren personally distributed money to the victims and their families.
Last month, Assistant Chief Constable Sam Kincaid said police had found documentary evidence that Co Derry priest Fr Jim Chesney was involved in the bombing.
Mr Kincaid also alleged that other documentary evidence implied the then-Secretary of State William Whitelaw and Cardinal William Conway discussed Fr Chesney's involvement and the priest was moved to another parish in Co Donegal as a result.
Earlier in the year, republican sources told the Irish News that the Bellaghy-based priest was involved but merely on the periphery.
The latest allegations were made after Mrs Hamilton said she had received a letter from another Catholic priest who claimed Fr Chesney told him of his involvement in the bombing.
Mrs Hamilton said that, while at the time of the bombing she looked on the money received from Dr Farren as a kind gesture, she now wondered whether it was "conscience money".
She also asked whether Dr Farren, who died in 1980, was aware of Fr Chesney's alleged involvement and made the donation because of that.
A spokesman for the Derry diocese said that a fund had been established in the aftermath of the bombing for voluntary donations, but there had been no record of the church handing out money at the time.
