Dermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)

We need to put all of this in context. I do not suggest there is anyone in the House who does not want to do his or her best to eradicate organised crime from our society. I cannot accept the Deputy's amendment because it cannot stand side by side with what we intend to do. What we are trying to do is to raise the level of seriousness of organised gang crime offences to a similar level as pertained with regard to paramilitary organisations in this country. Currently, the DPP has the power - a power he used in the Veronica Guerin situation - to send cases into the Special Criminal Court.

I believe, as does the Government, this move is necessary, particularly in the aftermath of the Roy Collins murder. In that case some people waited four years to take revenge on a family and murder a person related to somebody who gave evidence in a trial four years earlier. I hear people suggest it, but I did not confuse the issue of witnesses and jurors. However, does anybody for one minute suggest that those people who murdered Roy Collins would stop at murdering or intimidating a juror just because he or she was a juror and not a witness. I do not believe they would.

Some people say we should not use the Special Criminal Court for organised gang crime. One of the judges in a Supreme Court case, Quilligan v. O'Reilly, said it was common knowledge, and was discussed during the debates on the enactment of the 1939 Act that what was envisaged were cases or situations of a political nature where juries could be open to intimidation or threats of various types. He went on to say that, however, a similar situation could also arise in types of cases far removed from what one would call political offences. These could well be a grave situation dealing with ordinary gangsterism or well-financed or well organised large-scale drug dealing or other situations where it might be believed or established that juries were, for some corrupt reason or by virtue of threats or illegal interference, being prevented from doing justice. It is clearly envisaged, therefore, that the Special Criminal Court can be used to deal with these situations.

In a High Court case, the DPP v. Special Criminal Court - a case taken in the context of the Veronica Guerin situation - the High Court judgment made reference to the difference between crime in traditional forms and organised crime. The High Court judgment stated that those engaged in such crime require a wall of silence to surround their activities and believe its maintenance is necessary for their protection. They have at their disposal the resources, including money and firearms, to maintain this wall of silence and will resort to any necessary means, including murder, in furtherance of that objective.

I suggest to the House that we are in that situation. I am not trying to raise the Roy Collins murder above any other murder. Of course, every murder has been awful for the families of the murdered, but the Roy Collins murder was different. Clearly, the murderers were sending out a signal to anyone in that community that if they assisted in any shape or form in cases against them, they would take revenge and make an example. Deputy Rabbitte suggests I have produced no evidence for this belief. The evidence I have produced is the word of the Garda Síochána saying this is necessary, on the basis of the hard evidence it has over a number of years, but particularly in recent times and in certain areas, of jury intimidation, interference and threats.

This is more surreptitious than witness intimidation and we know that. We changed the law in 2007 to take previously recanted statements of witnesses. That is working well. Some 200 lawyers wrote letters about that 2007 legislation and the Law Society said it needed more time to examine it and it should not be rushed through. Has the world fallen in since that legislation? No it has not.

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