Joe Costello (Dublin Central, Labour)

I welcome the Minister and the proposal for a commission of investigation into the Dean Lyons case. At the outset I stated my intent to table an amendment to the order and the terms of reference laid out by the Minister. The amendment would extend the order beyond "arising from the making of a confession made by Dean Lyons (deceased)" to include the arrest and detention. It would read: "A commission is hereby established to (a) investigate ... matters relating to and arising from the arrest, detention and the making of a confession by Dean Lyons about the deaths of Mary Callinan and Sylvia Shields in March 1997 in Grangegorman." The reason for this is so the matters to be investigated are not solely related to the confession of Dean Lyons but extend to his arrest and detention. The Ceann Comhairle ruled this amendment out of order, stating:

I regret that I must disallow the amendment tabled by you to the above-mentioned motion on the ground that it is only within the competence of the Dáil to "approve" or "reject" the motion and therefore it has been the practice to regard such motions as not being open to amendment. I would like to refer you to ruling No. 516 of the Salient Rulings of the Chair, Second Edition, of 2002, which states: "In relation to motions approving a draft Order, the Chair rules amendments inadmissible where there is no provision in the governing Act for such amendment."

Two issues are at stake here. One is the order itself and the other is the terms of reference flowing from it. What is being spoken about here regards new legislation and there is no reason there should not be an amendment to what is proposed as a draft order and terms of reference. The Minister recognises that it should be possible to amend the terms of reference from what they are currently, as proposed by him today.

I am disappointed this is the case as I would like to have entered the debate at an earlier stage and presented the amendment so that it could be part of the discussion. We could then examine the debate in this context. What is important is that we get the process correct at this stage. The last thing I wish to see is the order and terms of reference being such that we cannot have a proper investigation. The person who has been appointed, George Bermingham, has a good reputation, but nobody can operate outside the terms of reference. It is important to examine the order and the terms of reference. I would have liked the terms of the order amended further than is proposed by the Minister, who proposed that the commission shall investigate "matters relating to and surrounding the making of a confession". The wording I propose is more specific and would change to order to read "the arrest and detention of and making of a confession". In his speech, the Minister referred to the draft terms of reference, which it is proposed would read:

the circumstances surrounding the making of a confession . . .

the adequacy of the Garda assessment of the reliability of Mr. Lyons's confession, both before and after he was charged with murder, and

the adequacy of information provided by the Garda Síochána on the morning of 27 July1997 . . .

The adequacy of the Garda investigation is the crucial point in the establishment of the commission of investigation. We are beating around the bush. To get to the core of the matter, the central term of reference should be the adequacy of the Garda investigation. I hope the Minister will take a fresh look at the terms of reference. He should make them comprehensive so that the commission has sufficiently wide parameters to ensure we do not end up with a lame duck report. Otherwise, matters which should have been investigated might not be investigated because the wording is so formulated that it is not sufficiently robust or comprehensive to allow the commissioner to carry out his work.

Everybody would agree that the Lyons case is one of the most bizarre murder investigations in the history of the State. Two women living in sheltered accommodation at Grangegorman in my constituency were brutally murdered in March 1997. Four months later a young, vulnerable man, Dean Lyons, was arrested, confessed to the murder and was charged. A month later, Mark Nash, a man who was already in custody in connection with other violent killings, also confessed to the murders and included in his statement details that could only have been known to the perpetrator. With two confessions to the same murder, the Garda had an embarrassing 200% success rate for a crime that required only100%. Therefore, the charges against Dean Lyons were quietly dropped. However, inexplicably, Mark Nash was never charged with the murder despite his confession.

The Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform and his predecessor in office refused all calls from the families of the dead women, Dean Lyons's family, the Labour Party and others for a full public inquiry into what was clearly a miscarriage of justice in the case of Dean Lyons and a failure to achieve a conviction in the case of the murdered women, which would have provided some form of closure on the terrible events for all the families involved. Since his appointment, the Minister has parroted stock replies to parliamentary questions along the lines "I am informed that the Garda investigation into this matter is ongoing". The most recent reply of that nature came in December 2004.

The calls for an inquiry were refused. However, a Garda investigation could not be ongoing forever and the miscarriage of justice was too obvious. Demands made by the legal representatives of the sister of one of the murder victims for an independent inquiry under the European Convention on Human Rights, which Ireland had signed up to at the end of 2003, helped to focus the Minister's mind and forced him to consult the Attorney General's office. Consequently, Mr. Shane Murphy SC was appointed to conduct a review of the circumstances surrounding the investigation. He recommended a full independent inquiry under the new Commissions of Investigation Act 2004, with power to examine witnesses under oath.

The Minister refused to publish the Murphy report as he had earlier refused to publish the internal Garda investigation. Now, after eight years, the Minister is belatedly and reluctantly acting on the recommendations of the Murphy report and doing what has been asked of him for many years. It is not good enough to state, as the Minister stated earlier, that this is a matter of significant public concern — of course it is, as well as having implications for public life. The Minister also stated: "I am convinced, however, that unless we do our utmost to get to the bottom of this controversy, it will simply continue to fester as an indictment of our criminal justice system." After eight years, the light is dawning. We tried to raise this matter and deal with it before and since the Minister came into office. The Minister has been dragged, kicking and screaming, into doing the decent thing for the families involved.

It is important to introduce correct terms of reference for the commission because these will determine the parameters of the work of the commissioner, Mr. Birmingham. It is important that the terms are adequate to enable him to fulfil the task allotted. I ask the Minister to accept my amendment in the spirit in which it is offered. It would strengthen the legislation to broaden the terms of reference to cover all aspects of the investigation, in particular the arrest and detention of Mr. Lyons, as well as his confession.

See this speech in context