Joe Costello (Dublin Central, Labour)

I raised this issue previously in the House. A young man was taken into Garda custody in Store Street Garda station on 2 June. He was taken from the station unconscious to the Mater Hospital on the same day. He was in a coma for a couple of months in that hospital, never regained consciousness and died.

The Commissioner subsequently established an internal inquiry under Superintendent Oliver Hanley into the circumstances surrounding the death. Superintendent Hanley was a serving officer in Store Street Garda station for approximately 20 years prior to this date. The commissioner did not provide an independent external person to conduct the inquiry. The report of the superintendent has been produced and it has been sent to the Minister and the Director of Public Prosecutions. I received a reply from the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform on 17 February to the effect that the Director of Public Prosecutions had considered the report and he did not propose to effect a prosecution in the matter.

The next step is the coroner's inquest. A preliminary hearing took place last Friday and the matter will be dealt with again on 2 March. It will be impossible to move forward on 2 March because to date the Garda and the coroner have not produced documentation in this regard. The initial Garda report has not been provided and the final report conducted by the superintendent has not been provided to the solicitor of the family. No clothing or other items belonging to the deceased have been provided. It is scandalous the family of the deceased must go to court to get the items of clothing, have them forensically examined independently and get the Garda reports. When the coroner's inquest takes place, it will not be an inquiry in its own right because it just deals with the proximate circumstances, who died, when they died and where they died.

One must examine the requirements under the law, particularly the requirements under the Constitution, which require that there would be an investigation under Articles 38 and 40 in regard to someone who died in circumstances of this nature, and under the European Convention on Human Rights, which we transposed into law in 2003. Article 2 requires that any death in State custody must be inquired into.

There has been an internal Garda inquiry, which is not in any sense a neutral investigation. There will be a coroner's inquest, the scope and functions of which are extremely limited in terms of medical grounds, and there is no information so far as to how a young man in the prime of his life should have died so suddenly after his arrest. Under the Police Act 1924, the Minister established an inquiry into the Brian Rossiter case in Clonmel. This inquiry is under way and deals with the case of a young man of 14 years who died in a Garda cell in Clonmel. I expect the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform to consider the establishment of a similar type of independent investigation into all the circumstances surrounding the death of Mr. Wheelock.

See this speech in context