Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I commend their commitment, resolve and attention to detail, which is quite forensic, and that they have not allowed a significant injustice to be swept under the carpet.

Shane O'Farrell was failed by several justice agencies of the State. There was a failure to monitor bail, failure to object to bail, failure to convict, failure to deport, failure to arrest, failure to imprison and failure to protect. Zigimantas Gradzuiska should not have been at liberty and there was a failure to protect Shane O'Farrell.

There are serious deficiencies with the GSOC report. I can assure the Minister that I will certainly not withdraw my remarks. I will not impugn the motivations of GSOC, nor did I in my remarks on previous occasions, but this is a bad piece of work. It took six years and it is a bad piece of work. I do not believe there is anything wrong with Deputies going through a report and identifying failures and asking the question of how, after six years, such a deficient piece of work came out. I am not going to go into motivations and GSOC has an important role to play, but the report is simply not good enough.

There are clear deficiencies. The underlying problem with the whole thing is that at every stage the word of An Garda Síochána is taken as a given. It is not a proper investigation. There is no testing, or pursuit. The word of the investigation is simply accepted and taken as a given. There are numerous examples of this. On two occasions, there were issues with Zigimantas Gradzuiska being before the courts in the North. GSOC simply accepted the word of the gardaí that because it happened outside the jurisdiction they were unaware of it, despite there being documentary evidence that the PSNI informed An Garda Síochána of these events. GSOC does not address that at all.

The GSOC report also simply accepts that while the car was stopped a number of hours before Mr. O'Farrell was killed, and despite the fact that the car was not properly insured, there was no basis for an arrest or for taking the car off the road because the divisional drug unit made the stop. That is simply accepted. The O'Farrell family disputes the account given by a garda in respect of the complaint involving Mr. Gradzuiska's wife. Again the word of the garda is simply accepted and the issue is not pursued any further. There is also the fact that Mr. Gradzuiska was not asked to take a drug or drink test on the basis that, as it was the morning after, it would have produced no evidence. This is despite the fact that Mr. Gradzuiska has a heroin conviction and that substance stays in the system for a number of days. Again, the position of An Garda Síochána is simply accepted in that regard. The whole issue of the manner of his departure from the country is also not dealt with adequately.

This is a bad piece of work but, even if it were not, this is the answer to the question the Minister asks, which is where does this leave us? It should not simply have been a matter for GSOC in the first instance. There are clearly failures which go beyond An Garda Síochána. Any objective reading of the facts would make that very clear. There are failures on the part of the Director of Public Prosecutions, DPP, and on the part of the Courts Service. These need to be examined and investigated. It is only right in order to pay tribute and to do justice to Shane O'Farrell, but it is also in the public interest. If there can be such a string of failures, not only the part of GSOC but on the part of these other organisations which are responsible for administering justice, there is a public interest in finding out why they occurred. That is the reason we have tabled this amendment. I will finish on this a Leas-Cheann Comhairle. I ask Fianna Fáil and other Opposition parties to consider the amendment. We believe that this should be a public inquiry and that all those agencies I have referenced and that are referenced in our amendment need to be part of it. I do not believe that it creates any difficulty or precedent or anything like that because the matter should not have been before GSOC in the first place. This is the model that should have existed. There should have been a public inquiry into the failures that occurred.

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