Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)

The apology offered today by the Government to the family of Shane O’Farrell comes after 14 years of their courageous and relentless pursuit of truth and justice for their son and brother. This apology is a vindication of the O’Farrell family’s unwavering stand for Shane and the life that was so cruelly taken from him. It is an acknowledgement of the litany of abuse by the entire State apparatus, not merely the criminal justice system, to which the family was subjected. It is to the shame of successive Governments that it has taken 14 long years to get to this point.

Shane's parents, Lucia and Jim, and his sisters, Gemma, Pia, Aimee and Hannah, fought a fight that no family should ever have to face. A heartbroken, bereft family were forced to battle for more than a decade against a State and system that should have had their backs. The truth is that the wagons were circled, ranks were closed and the State lined up against the O’Farrells at every turn. In the words of Shane's sister, Hannah, the family were treated like the enemy for daring to ask questions. Every bit of progress, every new piece of information, had to be dragged out of the authorities and would never have seen the light of day were it not for the tenacity of the O’Farrell family.

On an August night in 2011, Shane O’Farrell was cycling home to his family but he never made it. Shane was struck by a car driven by Zigimantas Gridziuska near the town of Carrickmacross in County Monaghan. It was a hit-and-run. He left Shane to die on the road, a young man of 23 with his whole life in front of him, his immense potential, his bright future and all of his tomorrows snatched away in the blink of an eye. To have your beautiful son taken from you in such a cruel way is enough to shatter the heart of any mother, any father and any family, but to uncover that the man responsible for your son's death should have been in jail at the time heaps searing injustice upon immeasurable heartbreak.

On the night Gridziuska hit Shane with his car, he was in breach of bail and should have been in Garda custody. Seven months prior to that fateful night, he appeared before the Circuit Criminal Court on theft charges. The judge deferred sentencing him for one year but warned him, as the Minister said, that he would be jailed if he committed further offences. Three months before the hit-and-run, he appeared before Ardee court on further theft charges. The judge was not informed of the order from the Circuit Court and he was given a suspended sentence. He was released again. It was this disastrous decision that allowed Gridziuska to be driving a car that night, a disastrous decision that cost Shane O’Farrell his young life.

Serious questions have been repeatedly asked about the nature of engagements between Gridziuska and An Garda Síochána because he routinely broke the law. He had 42 criminal convictions to his name. Gardaí failed to execute court orders against him. He received three custodial sentences in 2010, the year before he hit Shane O’Farrell with his car, and he did not serve a single day of any one of those sentences. He was undeniably a recidivist offender but was he more than that? There are credible allegations that he had, in fact, been operating as a Garda informer, yet answers have never been provided - not one. This person was routinely able to flout bail and court orders and custodial sentences. He hit and killed a young man with his car at a time when he should have been in jail.

The big unanswered question is this: why is it that he was at liberty on that night he fatally struck Shane with his car? Nobody has ever given an answer as to how this was allowed to happen, not to the O’Farrells, not to the Dáil and not to the general public. The O’Farrells have faced indignity upon indignity. They have been traumatised and retraumatised, confronted with years of shoulder shrugs and stonewalling, with a message from the powers that be: give up, shut up and go away. Lucia and Jim O'Farrell, their children and their family faced all this but they did not give up, they did not shut up and they did not go away. They fought and fought and fought.

That the family has achieved this apology today is a testament not only to their courage, not only to their determination, but to their undying love for Shane. His face, his voice, the life he could have had, the life he should have had, inspires them to keep going, to face it all. God knows, the O’Farrells are owed an apology from the State. They are owed reams of apologies. Today is the day for his lionhearted family who have shown what it means to love somebody unconditionally, a family that has not once backed down in their fight to achieve justice for their son and brother. They have faced the heartache of the empty chair, a pain compounded by the absence of answers, by the absence of truth, yet they kept Shane's memory alive and did not allow his death to be swept under the carpet.

5 o’clock

I have met Lucia and Jim so many times throughout the years. Their decency, their integrity and their love for their family shines through every time. Their values stand in stark contrast to the disrespect and the dishonesty that they faced: a formidable Irish mammy and daddy who took on the powers that be, the power of the State and never flinched - not once - because they would not let their son down; and a 23-year-old lad who had everything going for him, who had his entire life ahead of him but who never got the chance to live the years owed to him.

Cruthúnas atá sa leithscéal seo go raibh an ceart ag muintir O'Farrell. Bhain tábhacht le saol Shane O'Farrell. Baineann tábhacht lena bhás agus an bealach a bhfuair sé bás freisin. Shane O'Farrell mattered; his life mattered; his future mattered; and his death and how he died mattered too. The courageous fight of the O'Farrell family, whom we salute, stands today as an enduring testament that the truth matters. Like love, it matters and it endures.

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