Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú)

I want to welcome the O'Farrell family and thank them. I want to mention two TDs who have done a great deal of work on this over the years for the family, namely, Deputies John McGuinness and Matt Carthy. That deserves recognition.

To bury a child is in excruciating pain, one that no parent should ever have to experience. That should have been the limit to the pain the family experienced, but that was not the case. The State then heaped pain in a continuous battle against the family over the next 14 years. The O'Farrell family took on the State in what was probably the most persistent campaign I have ever seen, which has to have had a significant emotional and physical cost to the family, given all the work they have done.

The door was slammed shut on the family by so many aspects of the State, including the Garda, the courts, the Probation Service, the DPP and the Department of Justice. One of the most ignorant ways in which the State slammed the door on the family has to have been the result of the scoping exercise, which blamed the death on Shane himself. That was a particularly dark aspect of the State's handling of this. I challenge incompetency in this Chamber regularly, but even I cannot believe the State could have been so incompetent as to line up so many aspects of damage in this situation.

The only other reason Zigimantas Gridziuska could have been allowed to walk with impunity in and out of court for so long in this country has to have been because he was an informer. If that is the case, questions remain unanswered and there would be wide-ranging ramifications. The fact that he was a foreign national who came into this country, had 12 convictions in this State and committed two offences in the North of Ireland before he killed Shane and then committed crimes in Belfast after he killed Shane is incredible. The fact he came to this country with 12 convictions already for aggravated burglary, handling stolen property, road traffic offences, a defective vehicle, malicious damage and threat is also incredible. The fact it took the O'Farrell family to ask the Garda after Shane was killed to check with Interpol whether Gridziuska had previous criminal convictions is an outstanding and damaging dereliction of duty in the State. It is an incredible situation. For two years, he had the impunity of the State. The questions around those two years have to be an asked and answered.

Can it happen again? That is a big issue. I believe it can happen again. I submitted a parliamentary question to the previous Minister for Justice. We have the right to remove EU citizens of this country if they have criminal records. That number has fallen significantly over the past number of years. The only guarantee that this will not happen again is if we have truth and accountability, and I do not believe we are there yet.

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