Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)

To use that Irish phrase, I knew Shane O'Farrell to see but I had never spoken with him. It is one of my regrets that I did not get to know the man in life that I now feel I know well - the good-looking, talented, popular young man from my home town of Carrickmacross. Conversely, I regret that I have had to get to know his family so well. I regret that because it is only because of what happened to Shane on a summer's evening in August 2011.

Prior to that, Jim and Lucia O'Farrell were the quiet dignified parents of four daughters and their beloved son. They caused no offence to anyone. They were model citizens. They were the definition of a perfect Irish family. Their lives changed forever when Zigimantas Gridziuska killed their son. The shadow of an unbearable grief was to become the constant backdrop to their lives but they were also set to become formidable campaigners for truth and justice and today is their vindication.

Today is a welcome acknowledgement by the Government that this family was right in their campaign. No longer can their assertions of State failures be described or dismissed as allegations. It is an indisputable fact that Shane O'Farrell was failed by the State resulting in his death and that his family were failed by the State every day since. The man who killed Shane O'Farrell should not have been at liberty on 2 August 2011.

Zigimantas Gridziuska lived what has been described as "a charmed existence". He had an amazing ability to avoid consequences for breaking the law in Ireland, such as the moment, less than an hour before Shane was killed, the car in which Mr. Gridziuska was travelling was stopped by the Garda. There was no tax, no NCT and the insurance had been secured fraudulently. Driven by one known criminal, the passengers comprised of other known drug dealers, including Gridziuska, but there was no search, no arrests or no seizure of the car. Gridziuska was told to take the steering wheel and then he drove on down the road to hit Shane O'Farrell, throwing him over the bonnet of the car, leaving Shane to die on the side of the road before driving on into Carrickmacross, hiding the car and going to bed.

A few years before that, Gridziuska had arrived in Ireland with 12 convictions from Lithuania. Time and time again, he committed crimes in Ireland. Time and time again, he walked free from theft, drugs and traffic offences. In 2008, 2009, 2010 and throughout the first half of 2011, he was repeatedly arrested and repeatedly brought to court and, repeatedly, he walked free.

He committed hundreds of bail violations. Whenever he was returned to courts, gardaí failed to notify the presiding judges of the facts of this man's criminal rampage. They mislabelled evidence and failed to tell the courts of outstanding warrants. When a judge demanded that further crimes result in a return to his court, gardaí, it seems, simply ignored the call. Despite a bail condition to sign-on daily at Garda stations, Gridziuska managed to carry on as if that condition did not exist. He even ended up imprisoned in the North for a time and nobody seemed to notice. The Courts Service also managed to mislabel papers to Gridziuska's advantage. Any one of multiple failings, if it had been set right, would have ensured that Shane O'Farrell would be alive today. Even when he was in court after he killed Shane, gardaí did not object to bail. Zigimantas Gridziuska walked free again.

Upon his conviction after Shane's death, the judge offered Mr. Gridziuska a choice: either serve a prison sentence or return home to his family in Lithuania. The simple question that Shane O'Farrell's family have been asking ever since is: how could that be? Why is it that, regardless of the crime, the man who killed their son and brother could simply not be jailed? Was he just the luckiest criminal to ever walk the earth or was it something more sinister? For 14 years, they have sought answers from the State and for 14 years they have been stonewalled at every turn. They endured a seven-year GSOC investigation, an 18-month independent review mechanism process and a four-year scoping exercise, none of which delivered answers and all of which fulfilled what, I suspect, was the intention to delay and frustrate the O'Farrell family's quest for truth, but they could not succeed because Government after Government failed to appreciate or understand the formidable opponent that they had pitted themselves against.

Lucia O'Farrell today told me that she is just a 67-year-old mother trying to get justice for her son. I have come to realise that there is nothing more powerful because it was not any of the State investigations, not the Garda, the courts or the Director of Public Prosecutions, DPP, or GSOC, or IRM or the scoping exercise, that found any of the failings that have been outlined here today. In some instances, in fairness, it was the media, "Prime Time" and The Ditch, in particular, but, in virtually every instance, it was the tenacity, determination and intelligence of Shane's father, Jim, Shane's sisters, Gemma, Pia, Amy and Hannah, and, above all, Shane's mother, Lucia, who found the answers that brought us to today. They did everything that they did for Shane, above all - there is no doubt about that - but they also did it to ensure that no other family would ever have to go through what they had and that will be the test of the words of Government today.

The Minister can direct that the GSOC section 103 report, entitled "The Public Interest Report", into Shane's case be published in full. He should also direct that the file that we know exists relating to Zigimantas Gridziuska, held by the Garda National Crime and Security Intelligence Service, be published because many people, myself included, believe that Zigimantas Gridziuska was an informer and that he was permitted to wreck havoc because gardaí prioritised the protection of their source above all else. The publication of those documents would be a signal that the Government's words of today will have meaningful effect and I hope that happens.

I mentioned that I regret that I have gotten to know the O'Farrell family so well but in another sense I am so proud to have gotten to know them over the years and to have joined them for a small part in their journey. Lucia O'Farrell is a force of nature.

I am sorry, Lucia, that it has taken so long for you to get to this point but I want you to know that you have touched the lives of so many people over the past 14 years. You have been an inspiration, in particular, to others who seek truth and justice for their loved ones. I hope that you know that today would not have happened were it not for your efforts - all those meetings, letters, emails and countless hours of investigation and reading. It should not have been necessary but it has all been vindicated today.

Above all, I hope that you Lucia and Jim, and Gemma, and Pia, Amy and Hannah, know that you have done Shane proud. I hope that your grieving process can start properly today. I sincerely hope and pray that you can all at last find the peace you deserve and the peace and comfort that, I know, Shane would want for your all.

See this speech in context