Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)

I welcome the family. I wish we did not have to welcome them here. I welcome the apology and I welcome the changes that are proposed for a review of the bail laws, particularly that relating to a four-month time limit. I welcome that there will be a change in legislation regarding a direction from a judge to allow lesser charges to be put. I welcome that there has already been a change to legislation to make leaving the scene of the accident an indictable offence. I also welcome the scholarship. While I welcome all of that, I have the most serious concerns that questions have not been answered and therefore we cannot learn. I do not think the O'Farrell family can bear the burden any more. Like other Members, I will be entirely guided by them.

It is ironic that a life sentence was imposed on the O'Farrell family and not on the person who committed all the offences. On 2 August, it will be 14 years since Shane's death. The family have persisted with each one of us. I have been elected to the House on three occasions. After each election, they have come with dignity and respect and sat with us to force us to do something. They have succeeded, because various Opposition groups have put motions before the Dáil. We stood together calling for an inquiry. While I very much welcome the apology today and the fact that the Minister has gone through it and said that we know the facts and do not need an inquiry to tell us about the facts, who is going to tell us what led to those facts? Where does that question go? How did this happen? How were matters that clearly indicated the man involved should be brought back before the judge in the case not brought to his attention? Who will answer these questions? How can the system, not just the Garda but the courts and everybody else as well, learn? Other families have also been affected by the failures that have been outlined here.

While I welcome the apology and hope it gives some solace to the family, who have worked for 14 solid years to get to this point, parallel with that we must ask how we learn from this. How do we prevent this happening again in the future? At every opportunity, I mention this. My introduction to the Dáil was the O'Higgins report on Sergeant McCabe. I went on from there to read the Charleton report, the report of the Morris tribunal and anything I could lay in my hands on. Each time there were significant bad behaviour and significant gaps that we really have not come to terms with. We thought with the Morris tribunal that criminality was limited geographically.

The failure to bring matters before the courts in this case also happened in other cases, which led to very serious consequences. The big gap I see is the failure to account for how we have this litany of facts in relation a man who went back to his own country. I stand here humbly and say that I really do not know where to go next. It has taken 14 years of this family giving up their lives in memory of their son and their brother to get this seat of democracy to say that what happened was absolutely wrong. These are the facts. It should not have happened, but we will not have an inquiry because we know the facts. It seems to be a circular argument really.

I have reluctance in relation to inquiries and how they go on forever. I shared those concerns recently in discussing the Farrelly inquiry and so on. We need to look at what led to those facts. What has the Garda learned? What has Garda management learned? Why are the reports not being published? I have no doubt the Minister is sincere, but he is apologising on behalf of the State, on behalf of the Government and on behalf of institutions that utterly failed. If this apology is sincere, then what must go along with it is the publication of the reports at the very least.

The scoping exercise was an absolute disgrace. It referred to the victim being at fault because he did not have a light and so on. That was just a burden too much to bear. I thank the O'Farrell family very much for being here today. They have helped us.

See this speech in context