Thomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

It has been an interesting debate to sit and listen to. A number of questions have been raised about the Special Criminal Court and its continued operation, but today is different because we have the two reports from the review body. They have flavoured the discussion a bit more than in previous years in terms of what actually goes on here.

I have heard a lot of Members speak about what we would do without the Special Criminal Court and about how the court is vitally important to protecting the State. That may be the case, but no evidence has been provided on that anywhere at all. The Special Criminal Court has been here in operation so long we do not know what effect it has had. As to the idea the Special Criminal Court had a calming effect on the IRA campaign that went on for 30-odd years or whatever, I do not think it did. I do not think it made any difference to the campaign. There was obviously a risk people were going to end up in jail anyway. The Special Criminal Court has not made any difference to that at all. One could argue the Special Criminal Court has made absolutely no difference to drug crime across this State either. I do not see any criminals deciding they had better not get into the drug business for fear of ending up in the Special Criminal Court. Consequently, I am not satisfied there is enough reason there to maintain this all.

The presumption of innocence is vitally important. When people are going to stand up for the State, protect the State and give evidence for the State we must, no matter how difficult and uncomfortable it is for us, the Government, the Garda, the judicial system and everything like that, remember the presumption of innocence should be very important and the prime thing we are talking about. There is no evidence being provided anywhere that jurors are being nobbled and stuff like that, which is supposedly why the Special Criminal Court was set up. I believe it was set up so Garda evidence would not be challenged. Juries would not accept the evidence of gardaí, whereas judges have unfortunately accepted that evidence to a large extent and that has guaranteed convictions. The sole purpose of the Special Criminal Court has been to guarantee convictions and that is the reality of the situation. Gardaí have been going in there and there is a whole culture among lawyers, defence teams and so on of saying certain points should not be brought up in the Special Criminal Court because it will never wash as the court will not accept it. There is, therefore, a whole watering-down of the presumption of people's innocence and their right to a fair trial. That is what the Special Criminal Court is about and that is what this is about. It is not about protection of juries. If it is about protection of juries then show us the evidence. We should be shown evidence juries are being tampered with and stuff like that. I would be quite happy if I could see that evidence, but it is about protecting the bad and shoddy work of the Garda and ensuring it goes through unquestioned.

There are plenty of cases where people have been wrongfully convicted in the Special Criminal Court and served long sentences. I know of one case in particular, fairly close at hand. These cases have gone on. That is enough to ensure the Special Criminal Court should not be there, because it is wrong. As a society, we should be able to protect jurors. It is interesting the minority report talks about what could be done for the protection of juries. None of that was tried. I do not think any of it has been tried. Maybe it was in the early 1970s or something before the Special Criminal Court was implemented and used again, but I do not think so. It was basically a knee-jerk reaction where we said we have to convict these boys, we have to get them into jail, if we get enough of them into jail the whole thing will die away and that will be the end of the story. That is what the Special Criminal Court set out to do and tried to do.

Deputy Jim O'Callaghan mentioned a prominent case that took place this year and how he listened to it. I listened to that case as well. I only listened to the media reports about it on RTÉ and so on and I said to myself there was no way that guy was going to be convicted. I could tell from the evidence being reported on the fecking radio that it was put up. I thought he was going to be convicted in the Special Criminal Court because that is what the court is there to do, that is, to get convictions, and that he would get off on appeal. Bizarrely, the court, probably because it knew this review was happening and so on, took a reasonable view and let him off as it stood. That was down to the gardaí gilding the lily and putting more and more onto it. He could possibly have been convicted of something else and that could have very easily happened. Deputy Canney said we should have a good, honest discussion on this and I agree. We should have a discussion that is not around jury tampering. I do not see any evidence of that and would like the Minister to outline where the evidence is on jury tampering, because then we could have a discussion on that.

There was talk of the two reports, which are very good, especially the minority report. I still do not agree with it because I do not believe the Special Criminal Court should be there at all, but is it going to be like the Hederman report from 2002 in that in 20 years' time we will still be talking about it? The point of having this review in the Dáil every year is at least there is some scrutiny, at least there is some protection and at least there is chance of someone saying something will happen. There is nothing surer than that if this was put on a permanent basis it would be gone and forgotten about and the people tried before that court would be forgotten about as well. We would be throwing the key away and we would all suffer for that, because justice would not be done.

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