Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I add my voice to support the calls for a public inquiry into this. My son graduates this year from Trinity College Dublin having spent four years studying there. We look forward to celebrating my son's graduation. I cannot imagine having to deal with his death in the way the O'Farrell family has had to deal with Shane's.

Dealing with such a tragic death as Shane's is difficult enough but the way the State has since dealt with it is an indictment of the State. The Minister is a good man and I believe he will agree with us. It is now 2018 and almost seven years after Shane's death we have a GSOC report that, to avoid undue distress to the family, was not published until now. Surely this was a decision for the family to make. Rather than such a patriarchal attitude GSOC should have gone to the family with the report and advised the family that it would be upsetting.

The facts of the matter are startling. Shane O'Farrell was killed on the evening of 2 August 2011 while he cycled home. He was 23 years old and had just finished his master's degree at Trinity College Dublin. He was training for a triathlon that was to take place a few days later.

He went out for a cycle and did not come home.

The driver of the car that took his life had approximately 40 previous convictions in three jurisdictions, including for aggravated burglary, theft and road traffic offences on both sides of the Border. I could use my few minutes discussing the number of times the driver appeared before a court on bail without anyone ever examining or enforcing those bail conditions, but the reality is that a young man's life was taken when he was hit from behind by a person who was driving without insurance, tax or an NCT and who was on bail at the time. More startling than that, the car was pulled over a few hours beforehand by a Garda drug squad and checked for drugs. A second man was driving the car. He had no insurance or tax, so the drivers were switched, apparently with the permission of the gardaí, and the car drove on.

The facts are too difficult for me to read, and I am removed from the situation. I cannot imagine what it is like for the O'Farrells, who drafted a file for all of us. One of my introductions to the Dáil in 2016 was meeting them, going through the file and feeling utterly helpless about letting them down and not knowing what to do because of the investigations that were ongoing.

The Minister talked about a tragedy, but I will talk about an indictment. Consider the general facts of bail. This and previous Governments have been on continuous notice that the bail system is not working. I worked as a barrister and am convinced of the necessity for bail, but there are major problems with its operation. As Mr. Paul Anthony McDermott has pointed out, every judge knows that there is nowhere in our prisons to put people because they are overcrowded. We know it as well. There is no one to monitor bail conditions. The Irish Penal Reform Trust has found monitoring to be extremely erratic, with one interviewee stating that, in 40% of his applications to revoke bail, the conditions were not being monitored properly. I read the O'Higgins report. I felt it was moderate and the judge went out of his way to avoid criticising the Garda. My colleague on the left mentioned a case in Cavan-Monaghan. Similar to that was the tragic murder of Sylvia Roche Kelly by someone who was out on bail and had previously assaulted a female taxi driver, an assault that was serious but was recorded as being minor. He went on to murder a woman in Limerick.

I do not want to take from the seriousness of the Shane O'Farrell case, only to highlight that these problems have been ongoing for a long time, which every Government knows. To discuss a GSOC report now, which is being published a year after it should have been and years after it should have been made public, and tell us that victims find going to court difficult and are ignored and that the listing system is wrong, is pathetic and unacceptable. I must add my voice to the calls for a public inquiry. It is needed.

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