John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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Before calling on the Minister for Justice, on behalf of all Members of Dáil Éireann, I wish to acknowledge the presence in the Distinguished Visitors Gallery of Shane O'Farrell's family - his mother, Lucia, his father, Jim, and his sisters Pia, Hannah, Gemma and Aimee. They are very welcome. Some 14 years ago, they lost their beloved son and brother, Shane, who was just 23 years of age. He was a young man entering the prime of his life. Shane was killed by a hit-and-run driver who should have been in jail at the time.

Since Shane's death, the family have relentlessly pursued truth and justice for him. It has not been an easy journey and there have been many setbacks along the way, but they have remained steadfast. I salute their courage, dignity and resilience over the past 14 years. The searing pain of Shane's tragic death can never be erased but it is my sincere hope that today's apology will bring a small measure of solace to them in their grief and loss.

I call the Taoiseach.

Micheál Martin (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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I would like to say a few brief words on behalf of the Government of Ireland in advance of the Minister for Justice’s, Deputy O'Callaghan, apology to Shane O’Farrell and his family for the failures of the criminal justice system in this case.

In the first instance, it is incumbent on me, on behalf of the entire Government, to recognise the deep pain, trauma and sense of loss suffered by Shane’s mother, Lucia, his dad, Jim, and the entire O’Farrell family since that most awful of days when Shane O’Farrell was killed on 2 August 2011. A young life so clearly full of energy, potential and promise was cruelly taken and a loving family was devastated by senseless loss. His loss was felt most deeply by his family and friends but also by the community as a whole and, indeed, the Irish people.

Shane was a person every family would be proud of. He excelled academically and in sport. His untimely death, the cutting short of this life just beginning and the ending of this unbounded potential at such a young age adds to and amplifies the unjust nature of his death. It is important, therefore, for me to say, without hesitation or caveat, that, simply, what occurred should not have occurred.

One of the most fundamental duties of the State is to seek to keep our people safe. Tragically, due to failings within our justice system - which the Minister will address in detail - Shane O’Farrell was exposed to danger to which he should not have been exposed. That series of failures allowed the driver of the car who knocked down Shane O’Farrell to be at liberty when, in all reasonable circumstances, he should have been in custody. Knowing the facts that we know now, it is obvious our communities deserved better, the O’Farrell family deserved better and Shane O’Farrell deserved better. While we cannot comprehend the grief you, as a family, have suffered, we can acknowledge the wrongs of the past and commend the bravery, courage and determination of your actions over the past 14 years.

As is obvious from previous statements made by many Members of this House, the motions that have been passed here and in the Seanad and from the statements that will be made here today, these Houses of the Oireachtas are united in support, empathy and compassion for the O’Farrell family and what they have gone through. Yet, nothing we do in this House will change what occurred on 2 August 2011 despite the overwhelming support witnessed here today. We can, however, try to ensure we learn from what occurred and seek to prevent what happened from happening again. We can seek to ensure that Shane O’Farrell is not forgotten.

Shane’s mother Lucia, his father, Jim, and the O’Farrell family have been tireless in their pursuit of truth and advocacy for reform. Today, the Minister for Justice will put the truth of what happened on the record of the House. He will also set out his proposals for reform. It is fitting and correct that he will also announce his plans to memorialise Shane and his life.

To Lucia, Jim, Gemma, Pia, Aimee and Hannah, it is my deepest and most genuine wish that the statement to be made by the Minister for Justice, the apology contained within it and the actions which are to be taken will offer some comfort and perhaps some peace to you after all you have gone through. Your campaign to get to this day has been long but it has not been in vain. I also thank the Leas-Cheann Comhairle for his sustained perseverance and advocacy on this case.

I commend the Minister and his team on the proposals they brought to Government earlier and for requesting that these statements to be made in the Dáil today.

As Taoiseach, and with the whole of Government, I fully endorse and support the apology to be given by the Minister for Justice.

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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I want to begin by welcoming members of the O'Farrell family to the House. I am conscious that for Shane's parents, Lucia and Jim, and his for his four sisters, Hannah, Gemma, Aimee and Pia, this very far from your first time in this House, or in the environs of Government Buildings. I had the honour of meeting you when I served as Minister for Justice. I was in awe of you all. I was in awe of your family and I was in awe of the might of a mother fighting for justice for her son. I saw at first hand your fortitude and determination to secure justice for Shane, your only son, your only brother, who was so cruelly taken from you. When I met you, we sat for hours as you remembered Shane. The pain was as raw as the day you lost him. Throughout that meeting, you brought to life a kind, happy, generous and determined young man. He was a sports lover and an exceptionally bright individual. He was a son, a brother and a friend. We can all attest to the strength of the Irish mother. Shane was blessed with a very special mother, who along with his father and his sisters, has championed his cause day in and day out for 14 long years. Lucia, you and your family have ensured that his name is heard and echoed in the corridors of power.

The commitment you have shown to this campaign is a tribute to a mother's love for her son, but also a family's pursuit of justice and truth. I hope that today, in some small way, we can start to heal the wounds left by Shane's untimely death. I know the agonising pain of Shane's tragic death near Carrickmacross in County Monaghan on 2 August 2011 has since been borne alongside your long campaign against the injustice of his killing. It is beyond regrettable that it is so often the case that the interactions of victims and their families with the State are so prolonged as to feel adversarial. I know that this, too, has exacerbated your already unimaginable pain.

I know Shane's death plunged your tight-knit community in County Monaghan into the depths of grief and numbness. The community had lost one of its own. Shane was a 23-year-old young law graduate with his entire life, a bright future, all ahead of him. The harrowing events of that day in August 2011 were just the beginning of a living nightmare for the O'Farrell family. Nothing we can do or say today will take away the pain of his loss but I hope the steps that we are taking will help bring some sense of closure and some small sense of comfort.

Today, we acknowledge failures in the Courts Service and the criminal justice system that exposed Shane to danger on the fateful day of his tragic death. My colleague, the Minister for Justice, will formally deliver a public apology to the O'Farrell family very shortly on behalf of the Government. The Government made a number of decisions, on the recommendation of the Minister and arising from the campaign of the O'Farrell family, that we hope will bring about meaningful changes. The Minister, Deputy O'Callaghan, will outline these decisions in detail. They are rightly intended to directly respond to the failings we are acknowledging today. I commend the Minister for bringing forward these measures and for proposing these Dáil statements today.

Nothing we can do or say can ever make up for the grief or sorrow of the O'Farrell family and the anguish of their long campaign for justice,but I hope that an apology today and the actions we are taking alongside it may be some balm for the pain that you bear. I hope you will take some comfort in having translated that pain into changes that should, and must, protect others in the way that Shane should have been protected, so that other families do not endure the suffering that you have. Shane's memory lives on in this and in so many ways, thanks to your enduring love and your inexhaustible resilience. Thank your again for being here today, for the Government to deliver this statement. As Tánaiste, I fully endorse and support the apology that will now be given by the Minister for Justice.

Jim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail)
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I also want to welcome the family of Shane O'Farrell to the Distinguished Visitors' Gallery, his loving parents, Lucia and Jim, and his sisters, Gemma, Aimee, Pia and Hannah.

When Shane O'Farrell left his home in Carrickmacross on the evening of 2 August 2011 to go on a cycle in preparation for a charity triathlon, he had his whole life ahead of him. At 23 years of age, Shane had secured a law degree from University College Dublin, had just completed his masters in law at Trinity College Dublin, and would no doubt have proceeded to commence a professional career that would have been as distinguished as his student career.

That life was never lived because Shane was killed that evening. His loss was incalculable. His family’s was interminable. I know how much pain the O’Farrell family have gone through since they were informed that day of Shane’s death. There is nothing I nor the Irish Government can do to alleviate that pain. What I can do, however, is record how the justice system that operated at the time exposed Shane to a threat to which he should not have been exposed.

For many years, the O’Farrell family have sought a public inquiry. In fact, this House voted on 14 June 2018 and 10 July 2024 for the establishment of such an inquiry. The Seanad voted for one on 13 February 2019. The purpose of an inquiry is not to administer justice but to reveal and report on facts that are of public importance. Many of the facts associated with Shane’s death have already been established, mainly through the indefatigable work of his loving mother Lucia. We could spend many years inquiring into these facts - facts that are already known - in the hope or expectation that a chairperson of such an inquiry would report them in a manner sympathetic and favourable to the facts as presented to me by the O’Farrell Family. I need neither more nor further entrenchment of those facts in order to face up to my responsibility as Minister for Justice and the State’s responsibility for failings in our system that exposed Shane to danger on that fateful day. It is part of the heavy burden that I carry as Minister for Justice that I must confront these failings in our criminal justice system. I do not need to wait for five years for an inquiry report to tell me about those failings. I know them already. I do not need a report to force me into Dáil Éireann to give the apology to the O’Farrell family that I humbly give today.

The purpose of inquiries is twofold: first, to establish facts; and second, to effect consequences that derive from those facts. We have many of the facts. I now want to proceed to the consequences. Primary responsibility for Shane’s death rests with Zigimantas Gridziuska, the Lithuanian man who, having been stopped by the Garda drugs squad an hour before Shane was killed, drove the car that struck Shane from behind. He failed to stop and remain at the scene. Subsequently that night, he hid his vehicle away from his home. When he returned to his home that night, he told his wife that he had knocked someone down, yet they both then went to bed. Neither of them called emergency services. The driver was prosecuted in February 2013 for dangerous driving causing Shane’s death. He was acquitted of that charge by direction of the trial judge. Unfortunately, a lesser charge of careless driving was not open to the jury. Prior to Shane’s death, Zigimantas Gridziuska had repeated interactions with the criminal justice system, with his first conviction in Ireland occurring in March 2008. His repeated offending and the State’s response to his consistent breach of court orders and sentences merits repetition before the House. It is an illustration of the havoc and, as we know, tragedy that can derive from the actions of a recidivist offender who is not held to appropriate account by our criminal justice system. These are the facts that we know about his criminal behaviour in the 24 months prior to Shane’s death. We know that, on 27 January 2010, he was remanded on continuing bail in respect of four offences, having previously been granted bail for another offence on 28 August 2009. On 12 May 2010, Gridziuska was charged with two theft offences and was sent forward for trial on indictment to Monaghan Circuit Court. On 9 June 2010, Gridziuska was charged before Carrickmacross District Court with four offences of possession of heroin. He received a six-month concurrent sentence for two of these convictions and a three-month conviction for one other, with the final conviction being taken into consideration when imposing sentence.

On the same day, 9 June 2010, he filed an appeal against these convictions and lodged €1,000 in lieu of surety. This resulted in him being released from custody on that day. The first failing by the State arose here because the appeal documentation was wrongly filed, with the result that the appeal was never processed within the District Court office in Monaghan. The appeal should have been recorded on the criminal cases tracking system that is operated by the Courts Service, but it was not. Had it been recorded, the appeal documentation would have been produced and the file would have been sent to the Circuit Court so that an appeal hearing could be arranged. The failure to record this appeal meant that there was never a determination as to whether his six-month sentence for the heroin offences should be activated. Instead, by simply lodging an appeal on the day of his conviction, Gridziuska avoided ever having to serve the sentence imposed.

It must also be recalled that, on the same day, 9 June 2010, Gridziuska also faced four other charges before Carrickmacross District Court. He was charged with theft and also charged with theft and receiving, and he was sent forward for trial on both charges to Monaghan Circuit Court. Between 9 June 2010 and 11 January 2011, Gridziuska committed ten further offences relating to road traffic offences, the possession of heroin and theft. Four of these cases came before his honour, Judge John O'Hagan, at Monaghan Circuit Criminal Court on 11 January 2011 and the Circuit Court judge directed that they be adjourned for one year until 11 January 2012. The judge said that if Gridziuska kept out of trouble and did not commit further offences, he would adopt a lenient approach. However,if he got into further trouble, he was to be brought back before the court and a custodial sentence would be imposed. It is worth reciting the exact words used by Judge John O'Hagan on that day. He said:

If he does get into trouble again, it will come straight before me, anywhere on the Circuit, wherever I may be. You might even get a trip to Donegal, wherever it may be. Bring it in front of me and I will deal with Zigimantas Gridziuska. I am giving him this chance and this chance only. If he messes it up so be it. And I can assure you, Zigimantas Gridziuska, if you do mess this one up and you do get convicted, you will be going to prison; not you might; you will be going to prison.

This is where the second failing of the State occurred, because between this date of 11 January 2011 and Shane's death, Gridziuska was charged with and-or committed 11 further offences, yet he was not returned to Judge O'Hagan. On 16 February 2011, Gridziuska was brought before Carrickmacross District Court on another drugs charge. He was convicted and sentenced to six months imprisonment. Again, he appealed his conviction, lodged €1,000 in lieu of surety and was again released. On this occasion, his appeal papers were properly lodged. The failure of the State was that this conviction should have been brought to the attention of Judge O'Hagan, who had very clearly indicated that any further offences should be brought to his attention.

On 23 February 2011, he was convicted of two counts of theft. On 8 March 2011 he was convicted of another theft charge before Cavan Circuit Court. None of these convictions was brought back before Judge O'Hagan. In fact, he was also arraigned on that date for another single theft charge that had been sent forward on 17 December 2010 from Virginia District Court.

The failure to notify Judge O'Hagan was again repeated when Gridziuska was convicted of five theft offences committed over five days, before Ardee District Court on 9 May 2011, resulting in a four-month suspended sentence. Once more, this conviction was not brought to the attention of Judge O'Hagan. On 11 May 2011, he was convicted of speeding, with no referral back to Judge O'Hagan. On 8 June 2011, he was again convicted of a single drugs offence before Carrickmacross District Court and was fined €500. Again, this conviction was not brought to the attention of Judge O'Hagan. It is also noteworthy that he received a conviction in Northern Ireland on 15 July 2011, and arrest warrants issued against him at that time were not executed.

The O'Farrell family believe, and I agree with them, that had those convictions on 16 February, 23 February, 8 March, 9 May, 11 May, 8 June, 15 July and-or 25 July 2011 been brought to the attention of Judge O'Hagan, as he directed in his ruling of 11 January 2011, the likelihood is that Gridziuska would have had a custodial sentence imposed upon him on any of those dates. Had this occurred, Gridziuska may not have been at large on that fateful day on 2 August 2011 when Shane was killed while on his bike.

Between 27 January 2010 and Shane's death, Gridziuska was convicted of 30 offences. We know that the 30 offences he committed before Shane's death were committed while he was on bail, and we know that he was on bail for at least six offences on 2 August 2011. At present, our criminal justice system requires, under section 11 of the Criminal Justice Act 1984, that a person who is convicted of an offence while on bail should face a sentence consecutive to the offence for which bail was granted. However, the commission of an offence while on bail is not itself an offence in the same way as failing to appear before a court in accordance with bail terms is an offence under section 13 of the Criminal Justice Act 1984. Nonetheless, it is a condition of every bail bond that an accused person does not commit any further offences while on bail.

The legitimate questions that the O'Farrell family have asked are why the persistent breaches of bail conditions by Gridziuska, through the commission of further offences, did not trigger a response under our criminal justice code; why consecutive sentences were not imposed in respect of the offences he committed while on bail; and why warrants that were issued were not executed.

On 26 January 2011, on 11 May 2011 and on 25 July 2011, Gridziuska breached his bail conditions when he was convicted of road traffic offences. None of these was brought to the attention of Judge O'Hagan. More significantly, the five theft offences he was convicted of on 9 May 2011 were not brought to the attention of Judge O'Hagan. In fact, the court hearing those theft offences was not informed of Judge O'Hagan's direction. Gridziuska was also charged with having no tax on his car on 6 April 2011, but this was not prosecuted until 16 November 2011.

It is clear that throughout this time Gridziuska was ignoring the many different bail conditions set by the various courts. It is clearly the case that many of the offences committed by Gridziuska while on bail were summary offences. The broader question that must be answered is how our criminal justice system should respond to a recidivist offender who persistently breaks summary laws and whether, even if the theft offences had been brought to the attention of Judge O'Hagan, the judge would have had the jurisdiction, through statutory power, to remand Gridziuska in custody.

In order to answer these policy questions, I have asked Lorcan Staines SC to assess our bail laws and make any recommendations he believes are appropriate, taking into account the requirements of constitutional justice and the impossibility of refusing bail to every person accused of summary offences. I have required that this report be finalised and presented to me within four months of his engagement. I have asked that he identify any necessary changes that need to be made to our laws on bail and-or suspended sentences.

This is not a report that needs to establish facts, since those facts are very readily apparent from the charges laid against Gridziuska in the year leading up to the death of Shane O'Farrell. It will not result in people having to invoke their in reHaughey rights and lawyering up in a process that would inevitably take years. More importantly, it will not need to establish any facts since the relevant facts are already known.

This year, the Government will also be seeking the amendment of section 53(4) of the Road Traffic Act 1961 in order to take into account one of the consequences of the trial of Gridziuska. As we are aware, he was acquitted, by direction of the trial judge, of dangerous driving. The jury was not, however, permitted to proceed to consider the lesser charge of careless driving. It has been the law since 1962 that where a trial judge directs the acquittal of a person charged with dangerous driving, they cannot then be found guilty of the lesser offence of careless driving.

The option of the lesser offence is available with a jury acquittal of dangerous driving and it is a serious flaw in our law that the option is not available in the event of an acquittal direction from the judge. I am pleased to say that the Minister for Transport, Darragh O’Brien, has agreed to ensure that section 53(4) of the Road Traffic Act 1961 is amended in the next Road Traffic Bill he will be introducing in the Dáil this year. This will be the second change to our law achieved as a result of the tireless campaigning of Shane’s family. Section 17 of the Road Traffic Act 2014 was also introduced in memory of Shane and as a necessary correction of our law. It established a new indictable offence of leaving the scene of an accident where an injury or death has occurred.

This review of our bail laws and the further proposed change to our laws that I announce today are a reflection of how the criminal justice system did not protect Shane O’Farrell. Our laws will be changed to reflect his memory.

In light of the failings in the criminal justice system that I have outlined in this speech, it is incumbent on me, as Minister for Justice, to apologise to Shane O’Farrell and the O’Farrell family for the fact that the criminal justice system did not protect him as it should have. I do so apologise. However, we should also remember Shane not just because of how he died but also because of how he lived and what his life may have been. Shane was a law graduate of UCD and TCD. He respected and obeyed the law. He was destined for a career in the law. Nothing I can do can realign that trajectory of a life stolen in its prime. We can, however, commemorate that life. I am honoured to announce that the Department of Justice will fund every year a scholarship in the name of Shane O’Farrell that will be awarded to a student who distinguishes him or herself in the masters in law degree at University College Dublin. The Shane O’Farrell award will confer on its recipients, in perpetuity, the honour of the excellence by which Shane lived his short but exemplary life.

It is my sincere hope that what I have said today on behalf of the Department of Justice and on behalf of the Government of Ireland will provide some peace to the O’Farrell family. I hope that the review of our bail laws and the actions to be taken thereafter will help prevent other families having to suffer in the way the O’Farrell family have suffered. I hope the O’Farrell family can take pride and comfort in the fact that Shane’s memory will live on through the scholarship at UCD.

I will finish by saying something to the O’Farrell family that I know every Member of this House will agree with. It is because of the work and tireless campaigning of the O’Farrell family that the memory of Shane O’Farrell will not be forgotten.

Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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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.

Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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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.

Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour)
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I pay tribute to you Lucia and the O'Farrell family, Jim, Gemma, Pia, Amy and Hannah, for your unwavering quest for justice for your son and brother, Shane. You have fought so insistently and so strongly for so long. Shane's life was cut short so cruelly 14 years ago on 2 August 2011 and I know from meeting with you so many times over the years just how much your grief and sorrow at his loss was compounded by that sense of injustice at the multiple failings of the State that have been outlined comprehensively by the Minister. Before my colleagues speak further, I just want to say how welcome, and yet how overdue, this apology is for the State failings that you have endured. At last, the injustice you have endured has been recognised. You have worked so hard to achieve the giving of this State apology and it is an important day. For us, we welcome it. We await to hear your response to the words of the Minister, to the actions he outlined and to this important apology today, but we all think of you and you think of Shane today.

Ciarán Ahern (Dublin South West, Labour)
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Like everyone, I was absolutely shocked to hear of the tragic circumstances of Shane O'Farrell's death on 2 August 2011. I am always saddened to hear of deaths on our roads, of which there are still too many, but as a cyclist, a law student, a UCD graduate and someone who was around Shane's age at the time, his death in particular hit home with me. I recently had the privilege of meeting with Shane's mother, Lucia, and his sister Hannah. The meeting stuck with me for a number of reasons, including the extraordinary background to Shane's death and the subsequent miscarriage of justice in how the investigation of that death was handled by the State. It was a miscarriage of justice and we need to be clear about that. However, what stuck with me the most was the dogged determination of Shane's family to rectify that miscarriage and to make sure that justice was realised for both Shane and the O'Farrell family. The O'Farrells have been wronged by the State and by our justice system. Shane has been wronged.

We in the Labour Party welcome this State apology to the O'Farrells today. The Minister supported the O'Farrell family from the Opposition benches, as did the Leas-Cheann Comhairle, who is also sitting here today, and politicians from many parties, including my own, and I commend him on taking this important step and beginning to make amends for what happened. A State apology is a rare thing. The State does not easily apologise for anything. Apologies must almost always be dragged out of it following significant campaigning, heartache and often adversarial litigation on the part of those affected. An apology is certainly warranted in this instance. We would not be here were it not for the resolute determination and ceaseless campaigning of Lucia and all of the O'Farrell family to achieve justice for Shane and for their family, who first had to live with the grief of Shane's killing and then with the gaslighting from those the family were relying on for straight answers and justice. The O'Farrells should all be incredibly proud that they have got us to this point. I hope today's apology will provide them with some degree of closure.

During the State apology to the Stardust families, the Tánaiste, who is with us today, said:

In such shattering circumstances, the ... expectation must surely be that the State comes to the aid of its citizens and supports them in the terrible aftermath. Instead, it is to our great and eternal shame that, far from the warm embrace of a caring State, the Stardust families experienced a cold shoulder, a deaf ear and ... generations of struggle for truth and justice. It is to our great shame that State processes heaped misery upon tragedy for the Stardust families.

Those same words could be copied and pasted with respect to what our State has put the O'Farrell family through. They too have had misery heaped upon tragedy. The report of the scoping exercise carried out by Judge Haughton to determine whether further enquiry was needed in this case adopted a narrative of victim blaming, which I know has been a source of considerable pain for the O'Farrell family. To suggest that Shane was somehow at fault for his own death was plainly wrong and the supposed evidence on which that suggestion was made does not stack up. The first three pages of the Haughton report are dedicated to criticising Shane and intimating that his own actions had a hand in what happened to him. I cannot begin to imagine how the O'Farrell family must have felt when they first read it. There is one person directly at fault for Shane's death and that is the driver of the vehicle that hit him, Zigimantas Gridziuska. However, the justice system that allowed that man to be out on the streets in the first place is also in the dock today. To have their son and brother blamed for his own death and the various processes they have had to go through just to get some answers have been an exercise of repeated revictimisation for the O'Farrell family. That happened at the hands of this State.

I do not want to presume how the O'Farrells are feeling about what the Minister has said during this apology. I understand that this will be their first time hearing the actual substance of the apology. This apology of wrongdoing by the State may be enough for them. It may provide the closure they need and deserve. I sincerely hope that is the case and that they can finally rest after a long and arduous fight for justice for Shane. I will talk to the family following these statements and whether they feel they need to continue this fight or they feel this issue can finally be put to bed, we will make that argument. The O'Farrell family's wishes must take precedence.

Notwithstanding this apology and how the O'Farrells feel about it, questions still remain for the State regarding how this case was handled and these must be answered to ensure this can never happen again. For example, there are questions as to how a document as flawed as the Haughton report was so easily accepted by the State and our justice system and used to quash calls for a public inquiry. The report was necessarily incomplete given the nature of the terms of reference and the documentation given to the judge. It could never have been anything other than incomplete and inadequate. It is extremely concerning that certain judges were not informed of Gridziuska's breaches of bail by the Garda or the prosecution. That is an incredible error and it was compounded by the fact that two gardaí who were disciplined in respect of the handling of this matter successfully challenged their disciplinary proceedings on the basis that they were not properly trained on the PULSE system and not legally required to check the court outcomes and, as such, not actually required to bring previous outcomes to the attention of the court. We need to know that this cannot and will not happen again. The loopholes that allowed this to happen need to be closed immediately whether through legislation, some other mechanism or simple training for gardaí. This is one of a series of significant failures that resulted in years of pain and struggle for justice for the O'Farrell family.

Something went seriously wrong here and the State and our justice system need to answer the questions this case raises about their processes and how to ensure this never happens again. No family should have to go through what the O'Farrells have had to go through. To lose a son and a brother and then, in the Tánaiste's words, to have misery heaped upon tragedy is not acceptable. We cannot allow it to happen again. This apology cannot be used to whitewash the serious failings at the heart of this matter.

Marie Sherlock (Dublin Central, Labour)
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I welcome that the O'Farrell family have finally got an apology today. Is it enough? I do not know but we all very clearly know that we are only here, 14 years on from that young man's death, because of the sheer persistence, tenacity and fight of a family. Lucia, Jim, Hannah, Gemma, Pia and Amy, you have been fobbed off and told that Shane was to blame for his own death. No family in this State should have had to put in the effort you have had to put in over 14 years, day and night, but you have had to and it is only because of all of that effort and heartbreak that we are here today. I hope today will give you some peace. You have been an inspiration for other families who have been wronged by this State.

I do not want to take away from Shane and the O'Farrell family today in any shape or form but I want to reflect very briefly on the fact that this coming Sunday marks the 20th anniversary of a young man, whose family Deputy Gannon and I know well, going into Store Street Garda station for a minor misdemeanour and coming out unconscious. For the family of Terence Wheelock, the pain and festering anger and frustration at the wrong they believe was inflicted on their brother lives on to this day. There are other families across this State who have been wronged by An Garda Síochána and the criminal justice system who have to fight on and who may never have had the energy the O'Farrell family has shown. The O'Farrell family has been a great inspiration. I am very glad that we are here today.

John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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Lucia O'Farrell and her family have been in and out of the offices of TDs and Senators in this House to fight for justice for Shane since 2011. I am thrilled that we are here today to witness this apology from the State and to hear the Minister recount all the failings of the State during the investigation.

Today we could say it is vindication but we have to remember that all through those years it was not easy for Lucia O'Farrell and her family. It was not easy to come before each one of us here in the House to try to convince us that something was wrong. We have heard those stories before. Lucia O'Farrell painted a picture of a State and a system that was rotten, a State and a system that brought no justice to her son and that gave him no chance whatsoever. It was not the Government or the system that uncovered all of the wrongdoing. It was Lucia O'Farrell who meticulously went through every single event from 2011 onwards and put all of that information down on paper to inform every one of us and to tell us to do our job - enough empathy, enough advice and enough assurances from politicians and officials: do your job as parliamentarians. That is what she was asking, and to recognise what was wrong for her son and for many others who are confronted by a State that, as this obviously shows, could not care less.

Lucia O'Farrell is made of stern stuff. She had a backbone and she knew what she wanted to achieve. She had a love for her son that was unmatched and this drove her on. She asked me regularly in conversations, "How will I face Shane eventually if I do not get justice for Shane?" Lucia O'Farrell, you can face him whenever that day comes because you certainly have brought justice for him and you have certainly exposed the State for what it is. Every step of the way obstacles were put in your way but you did not stand back and you kept going. A greater commitment to keeping our citizens safe and our State honest is part of the legacy of Shane O'Farrell. This is what you have achieved. The corrections the Minister for Justice outlined here that are needed to make the State and the apparatus of the State function will go some way to assisting those who may have the experience like you have had, or other events in their lives, to get justice far quicker.

In here we have to question ourselves as to why we are here. We should not be here and be blindly led by party Whips or by commitment to party. We should be led by our commitment to the citizens we represent. We should be led by our commitment to justice. We should not stand back in the face of those who would like no light to be shone in the dark corners, who would like no one to be penalised or sanctioned, and who would not want the truth to come out. That day is gone. We as parliamentarians must constantly remind ourselves that we are here with an obligation to keep our people safe. With Shane O'Farrell we did not keep him safe. We put him in harm's way. The Judiciary, the DPP, and An Garda have an awful lot to answer for. I cannot ignore that. I will not ignore either the bravery of our Minister who I am sure, in spite of what he was told and in spite of the obstacles that were put in his way, came forward and gave this apology. It was a little piece of leadership quality that others should take note of. It is that type of bravery we need from the ordinary Members of this House to ensure that justice is done and is served.

Today is a day for the O'Farrell family, to allow this apology given by the Minister to seep in and to understand it, and to understand Lucia what you have achieved. It is clear that in a mother's love for her son, an Irish mammy is certainly a formidable force in Ireland and a formidable force that should be listened to, but unfortunately you were not listened to. I ask you to consider what has been said by the Minister. As I listened to him today reading out all of the wrongs that were meted out to the investigation around Shane, I could not help but think that since 2011 to this date it was all denied. It was a vote against an inquiry. It was a weakness in the political system and a desire to protect thestatus quo. It was a desire to turn our back on the reform that was needed. We saw it played out here from one side of the House to the other and I regret that. I regret that we have not within us the drive to ensure that the reform so needed right across the State is put in place. Lucia and Jim O'Farrell and their children have brought all of this before us again today to remind us of the amount of work we still have to do and the amount of reform that still has to be put in place. No longer should whistleblowers, or anyone else who has a story to tell such as Lucia O'Farrell and her family's, be shunned. We should listen to them and give them the space they require to tell their story. That is what we are here for, to be prepared to act, to be prepared to change the system, to be prepared to change the party system and the status quo, and whatever else holds the wrongdoing together and away from scrutiny. Enough is enough.

Lucia and Jim, I hope that after today you take the time to understand what you have achieved, take the time to understand that you have brought justice for Shane and that you had someone like the Minister understanding the law who could present us with this apology today. Shane would like you to live your life. When you go to visit him this evening, you will have something very substantial to report. I have no doubt Lucia that he would like to see you and Jim and the girls catch up on the years that you have lost since 2011, live out your life and live it out in memory of Shane. You have left an everlasting impression on all of us in this House who were willing to listen and to act. Thank you.

Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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The death of any person on our roads is a tragedy. The death of a child is a tragic hardship that no parent should have to bear. Shane O'Farrell was just 23 years old when he was struck and killed while out cycling near his home in Carrickmacross. The driver fled and while the man who took Shane's life handed himself into An Garda the next day, it seems as if in the intervening 14 years there has been a broad flight from justice and accountability on the part of the State.

I welcome that Shane O'Farrell and his family have received an apology today. Despite questions remaining unanswered and crucial reports being denied to the O'Farrell family to this day, it is an acknowledgement that the State has done something for which it must apologise. Shane O'Farrell had every right to be on the road that night. The man who killed him did not and he was a career criminal with a dozen convictions in Lithuania.

He racked up more than double that in offences here on his crime spree across the north east. It is simply not credible that the series of events that surrounded and led to the death of Shane O'Farrell can be explained away as a litany of errors.

While this overdue apology is welcome, it can only be the beginning in answering what this State did when it denied the O'Farrell family their right to grieve in peace, when they were forced to fight every single step of the way against the State, which often said all the right things in public, denying them the truth, justice and the opportunity to grieve in privacy and peace at every opportunity. If this apology is to be meaningful, it is incumbent on the Government to change the laws and ensure that we have a system that works. How can we be certain that no other family will go through what the O'Farrells have gone through? My judgment will be guided by the O'Farrell family, who are working tirelessly in the name of justice for their son and brother Shane. They have done more than Minister, any judge or report to ensure that no other family goes through what they have gone through again. I commend and thank Lucia, Jim, Gemma, Pia, Aimee and Hannah.

Cian O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay North, Social Democrats)
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First, I pay tribute to the family of Shane O'Farrell, namely, his mother Lucia, his father Jim and his sisters, Aimee, Pia, Hannah and Gemma, who are in the Distinguished Visitors' Gallery. I also acknowledge the official apology from the Minister for Justice. The family have been waiting for 14 years for this apology and for answers to questions about the death of their son and brother Shane. The apology is a reflection of the 14 years of campaigning by the family and their struggle for truth and justice. Shane O'Farrell should never have been taken away from his family. When I met Lucia, she told me of a kind, compassionate and caring son. Shane was a person who others turned to when they were in difficulty. He never turned people away. He listened and helped in any way that he could. He was hugely respected and loved. Shane had a bright future ahead of him and so much more to give. Shane was dearly loved by his family, including his sisters, his mother, Lucia and his father, Jim. The trauma, heartache and grief of losing Shane has been compounded by years of campaigning for truth and justice.

I raise the failures of GSOC, the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission, which is now named Fiosrú. It spent seven years investigating the complaints of the family and has refused to publish the two reports it produced, adding to this trauma. GSOC had this case for seven years. Shane's sister, Gemma, initially put her complaints in in January 2012. Those complaints were still under investigation, when, on 29 April 2014, then Minister for Justice Alan Shatter ordered a section 102 public interest investigation. This directed that all complaints should be investigated independently of the Garda in the public interest. The public interest investigation was completed on 13 April 2018. The family received a summary version only. A year later, in January 2019, GSOC produced another section 97 report regarding minor discipline. This recommended to the Garda Commissioner that three Garda members receive disciplinary fines. The Garda Commissioner then appointed a superintendent to look at the recommendations by GSOC to see if these officers should receive discipline and he agreed that they should. One garda accepted the fine. The other two took judicial review proceedings and challenged the decision. The outcome of the judicial review proceedings was that the Garda Commissioner agreed on consent not to discipline the two gardaí. This was because there was no evidence that they had ever been trained on the PULSE system to check previous court outcomes. It was not part of their training then and still is not now. Responsibility for Garda training rests with the Garda Commissioner. The section 101 public interest report, which was completed in April 2018, has been refused to the family. The section 97 report regarding minor discipline has also been refused to the family.

In Northern Ireland, the police ombudsman, when it has completed its report, will call the family in, go through the report and give the family the report to take home as it might help to answer some of their questions. Why is such a practice not being followed here? How can there be proper confidence in a body that will not give families the very report which it has prepared and which is in the public interest? Taxpayers' money was spent on seven years' investigation of the complaints relating to the horrific failings in this case. It is imperative that these reports are given to the O'Farrell family. There is absolutely nothing in the legislation that states the reports should not be given to the family. I call on Fiosrú to immediately hand over these reports to the family of Shane O'Farrell and not make them wait any longer. Shane should be with his family today. Nothing can change that, but what can be changed is that the answers that the family have been campaigning for all these years can now be provided.

Gary Gannon (Dublin Central, Social Democrats)
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To Lucia, Jim and the O'Farrell family sitting with us in the Gallery today, I offer my condolences and express my admiration of their dignity in grief, which has been extraordinary. Their courage is incalculable. They should never have had to fight this hard or for this long just to be heard. They should never have had to carry that burden of proof. Their campaign has been an act of love and courage. This House and this State owes them infinitely more than words. Their son, Shane O'Farrell, was 23 years old. He was a son, a brother, a law graduate and a cyclist and had a life full of promise that was ended in seconds. His life was taken by a man who should never have been on that road, who should never have been at liberty and who was protected by a system that repeatedly looked the other way. Today's apology is long overdue, but if it is to mean anything, it must force us to confront a deeper truth, that Shane's death was not a one-off failure, but the result of a justice system that is broken at both ends. The man responsible for Shane's death had more than 40 convictions North and South of our Border. He was on bail for multiple offences and had breached suspended sentences. Judges were not giving the correct information. The Garda did not act at the exact moment when it mattered, and court orders were left unenforced. A young man with every reason to believe in the law and who dedicated his short academic life to the law was killed by the State's failure to uphold that law. What is worse, after losing their son, the O'Farrell family were forced to become investigators, legal researchers and campaigners simply for the basic truth, for accountability and for the dignity of their son's life to be recognised by the very institutions that failed him. While we rightly offer an apology today, let us all be clear that an apology is not justice, accountability or reform. An apology without a commitment to atone is no apology at all.

I welcome the proposed changes to the law outlined by the Minister today, but gaps still remain. When the system does incarcerate people, it does so in overcrowded, under-resourced institutions. People go in with anger in their hearts from addiction and trauma and they come out more isolated, more hardened and more entrenched. Our recidivism rates prove that and the dangers to the communities do not reduce. This is a system that is broken at both ends. We have a system that does not detain those who are very clearly dangerous and offers no real rehabilitation to those who are sent back into the communities. It is a system where families such as the O'Farrells wait 13 years for truth while trying to piece together how so many warnings were ignored, while others, victims of assault, robbery and intimidation see no follow-up, no Garda presence or resolution. We cannot keep pretending that justice is working when everyone, including victims, families, front-line gardaí and even those inside the system, knows it is not. Justice should protect people. It should correct wrongs and restore trust. Right now, it is failing on all of those fronts.

If today's apology is to carry weight, let it be a turning point, not just for Shane's family, who has had to fight so hard, but for the kind of justice we deliver in this State, who we hold accountable, who we should clearly see as a threat, who we help recover and who we keep letting fall through the cracks. Shane deserved better. His family deserved infinitely more, and I hope they find some remote form of solace in today's State apology and in the facts outlined by the Minister.

For the rest of us who need to believe that the system is meant to serve, this must be a reckoning point. It must be the start of a system of justice worthy of that name. We owe it to Shane, who committed his short academic life to the law, to ensure we improve the system in order that this cannot happen again. We owe it to Shane's family to ensure that never again should a family who have so tragically lost a child and a brother have to align their grief with the tenacity to go in search of the truth and fight so hard just to receive the truth of your loss.

The very antithesis of justice is the retraumatising of victims and their families. All of us are sorry you have had to fight this hard. I hope today brings some closure. If it does not, I hope the family knows there will be voices across this Chamber ready to carry their call, to answer that call and to demand more if they so wish it. I was taken by the words of the Leas-Cheann Comhairle that all of us need to find our courage when it matters and to listen, to hear better and to respond better. I am reminded of the words of previous apologies in this Chamber and the campaigners who fought for them. I refer, for example, to Christine Buckley, who use the simple phrase: "I believe you before you open your mouth". That should be the basis of our institutions, and never again should the grief of families have to be prolonged in search of truth. I am sorry. We are all sorry, and we are here should you need us again.

Cormac Devlin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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I begin by welcoming the apology offered by the Minister for Justice, Deputy Jim O’Callaghan, to the family of Shane O’Farrell. It is a necessary and appropriate step, an acknowledgement of the profound and preventable failures that led to Shane’s death and of the deep hurt and sense of injustice his family have carried for over a decade. I echo the apology and send my heartfelt sympathies to the O’Farrell family on the tragic and avoidable loss of their beloved son and brother, Shane.

What happened to Shane should never have happened. Zigimantas Gridziuska, the man responsible for the hit-and-run incident in which Shane was killed in August 2011, had no right to be at liberty. He had more than 40 previous convictions. He was on bail for multiple offences, had breached his bail conditions and was the subject of suspended sentences that should have been activated, as outlined by the Minister earlier. Yet, inexplicably and unforgivably, no action was taken to bring him before the courts. The system failed at every turn. An hour before Shane’s death, gardaí stopped the car in which Mr. Gridziuska was travelling. The car was uninsured and lacked a valid NCT. The driver was replaced by Gridziuska himself and the car was allowed to continue on its way. That encounter could and should have led to his arrest. It could have prevented the collision that claimed Shane’s life. Instead, the opportunity was missed. The system once again looked away. A young man full of promise was lost.

The grief and heartbreak endured by the O'Farrell family have been compounded by the State’s slow, inadequate and often defensive responses. In the face of extraordinary personal loss, the family have shown immense courage and dignity. Their campaign for truth, for justice and for reform has been tireless. They have never sought vengeance. What they have sought is accountability, and through their persistence, they have forced the State to confront uncomfortable truths. I pay tribute to colleagues from across the House who stuck with the family and their campaign for justice over the years, particularly the Leas-Cheann Comhairle, Deputy John McGuinness, who consistently raised the issue during the term of the previous Dáil.

As recited earlier, there have been multiple investigations and inquiries. Each process shed further light on the gaps and dysfunctions within our criminal justice system. While some of these inquiries concluded that no single failure directly caused Shane’s death, what is absolutely clear is this: had the system functioned properly, Gridziuska would not have been on the road that day and Shane would still be alive. The circumstances of this case raise serious concerns around the bail laws, suspended sentences and interagency communication. These are areas where the system’s failings were starkly exposed. I welcome confirmation by the Minister that work has begun on implementing reforms. That must continue at pace. We need to acknowledge what the O’Farrell family have said, namely that no report, however detailed, can heal the damage done when the State fails in its most basic duty to protect the innocent from known danger.

Alas, it is often said that justice must not only be done, but must be seen to be done. In this case, for too long, justice was obscured. The O’Farrell family were left to navigate a maze of bureaucracy, evasion and delay. That must never be repeated. We owe it to them and to Shane’s memory to ensure no other family find themselves in such a position. Let me be clear: this is not about one tragic case alone; it is about the integrity of our justice system. It is about whether the safeguards we believe are in place are actually functioning and about how the State responds when things go wrong. The measures introduced in recent years, including reforms to bail and sentencing law, are welcome, but reform must be ongoing. It must be grounded in compassion, accountability and a willingness to listen. That includes listening to the families of victims. It includes respecting their experience even, and especially, when it challenges official narratives.

The O’Farrells have done this State a service by refusing to remain silent. Their advocacy has already led to change. It will continue to shape how we deliver justice in this country. As we reflect today on Shane’s life and on all that has been lost, let us resolve to build a justice system that is not only more efficient, but one that is more humane, where errors are admitted, failings are corrected and the lives of victims and their families are treated with dignity and respect. To Lucia, Jim and the entire O’Farrell family, we are truly sorry for your loss. We are sorry for the failures you have endured and we are grateful for your strength in continuing to seek the justice Shane deserves.

Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South-Central, Sinn Fein)
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I cannot imagine how difficult it is for the O'Farrell family to listen to so much of the detail being repeated, but I think it is a significant step that an apology has been achieved. I commend the O'Farrell family for their campaigning. I had many meetings with Lucia and the family. In my nine years in this place, she is one of the most impressive people I have ever met. I refer to her level of detail and just seeing things that passed other people by. As the Minister stated, there is no question but that we would not be in this position other than from Lucia's campaigning. I know she was supported by the whole family and by people outside the family, but there is no question about the fact that we would not be at this stage without her. We cannot think of what happened to Shane O'Farrell as just a tragedy - and it was a tragedy. Undoubtedly, there were failings. There were real and profound failings concerning in what has happened. It is impossible to escape the conclusion that if things had been done as they should have done, Shane O'Farrell might still be alive. The things that might have been done include Gridziuska having been brought back to Judge O'Hagan and the appeal having been recorded and reported in the way that it should have been. It is difficult to escape this conclusion.

I note several things from the Minister's statement. I welcome the apology, but it was stated that, "We could spend many years inquiring into these facts - facts that are already known". The Dáil voted for a public inquiry in 2018. The Seanad voted for an inquiry in 2019. That is several years in which much of that work could have been done. I note some of what was said in terms of something new I have not seen before. I refer to whether the authority exists in terms of bail and whether someone can be remanded. I do not at this point have the ability to evaluate whether that is correct. There is no doubt, however, that the system as a whole profoundly failed, and it is hard not to see a pattern. The Minister has recognised this in the past.

I hope that this will not be the end of it. I welcome the scholarship and the changes in legislation, but the truth still needs to be established. I ask the Minister to consider this further. I again commend the O'Farrell family and extend my thoughts to them for everything they have been through.

Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Solidarity)
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The main thing I want to do is to pay tribute, as has been done by many others, to Lucia, Jim and Shane's sisters. For 14 years, you should have been able to grieve and live your lives. Instead, you had to fight for justice.

We should remember that the family was not fighting for justice against nobody. The state was on the other side and was blocking the search for justice. The State apology is a vindication of what the family has been fighting for for 14 years.

It has to be over ten years ago that I met Lucia because I was an MEP at the time. I remember her specifically making the point about Shane being a UCD law graduate, as I was. What struck me was the burning indignation and anger at the injustice, how Shane had been killed and should not have been killed. That was combined with what others have referred to, namely the forensic detail of how this happened and how it simply should not have happened at many points down the line because Gridziuska was free and in a position to be driving that car.

I sincerely welcome the apology. Effectively, it is a repudiation of the results of the scoping inquiry. That inquiry found that the State had nothing to apologise for, had nothing to inquire into and that there was no need for a public inquiry. The outcome of the extremely lengthy scoping document, which went far beyond what we normally think of as scoping, was to say that the State had nothing to apologise for. It is effectively a repudiation of the role GSOC played and of the latter's reports. That should be recognised.

I really welcome the apology, but I also emphasise that an apology is not a replacement for the truth. There is a need to go further. The Minister was at pains to emphasise that the facts are known. He said we could spend many years inquiring into these facts that are already known. He said that what he is doing "will not need to establish any facts since the relevant facts are already known." I just worry, and I take my lead fully from the family on this. An important fact is sitting unanswered and not mentioned by the Minister. In 2018, the Minister stated in the House:

Tragedies happen in families throughout this country but the reason the tragedy of Shane O'Farrell merits public discussion and debate in this House and public investigation is because it reveals a very significant inadequacy and inefficiency at the heart of the criminal justice system.

What is still not known and what is not stated is why. There has been failure upon failure of the criminal justice system. Was that simply inefficiencies in the system or was it something more? Was Gridziuska protected because he was an informant for the Garda? That is a significant question that remains unanswered and that has wider implications. I again my lead from the family, but I still feel there are Garda papers to be published in this regard. We could do with having clarity on that matter.

We should not have to be here dealing with apologies. We should not need to have future apologies. This month marks the 20th anniversary of Terence Wheelock's death. His family will be on the streets this Saturday still fighting for justice and still demanding a public inquiry. They and others take inspiration from the O'Farrell family.

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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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.

John Lahart (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail)
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Words are completely inadequate, but I want to share some thoughts in spite of that. I warmly welcome the steps taken by my colleague the Minister for Justice, Jim O'Callaghan, to try to bring some - I will not say closure - sense and reason to the awful events that happened in Carrickmacross a decade and a half ago.

6 o’clock

I am very happy the Leas-Cheann Comhairle is in the Chair to oversee the proceedings.

When you get a little older in life, certainly in my case anyway, you become acutely aware as each decade passes of your mortality. It might seem odd to raise my mortality in the context of this debate - I just mean in relation to anybody's mortality. Why do I raise it? You become so pronouncedly aware of the value of life, the moment of life, the uniqueness and individuality of life and the passing phase of life and the unique, amazing opportunity we all have as human beings to have been born and to have experienced life. The one thing we learn is that some people are so careless about other people's lives. That is a point that really impacts me as I get older and as one begins to appreciate the value, importance and pricelessness of time. It is those thoughts that are to the front of my mind when I think of the O'Farrell family who are sitting behind me this evening.

I took an interest in this as a newish Deputy when we were in opposition between 2016 and 2020 for one reason, and one reason only, which is that the Leas-Cheann Comhairle, Deputy John McGuinness, kept raising it at Fianna Fáil parliamentary party meetings. I did not know who Shane O'Farrell was. I did not who Lucia O'Farrell was or who the O'Farrell family were, but John McGuinness kept raising it. He was relentless as an advocate and I must say, my admiration for him, which had been considerable at that time, just grew and evolved because he just would not let it go.

One Saturday evening, by arrangement with Lucia and her husband, I drove up and visited them. Her husband asked the most important question at the end of the night: what can you do? Why have you come here? I did not have an answer to that, except in my own head I was hoping that the gesture was enough to show that this was not going away and that we would continue to do our best to highlight this until we got to some semblance of truth in the matter. As I would expect from him, the Minister has very eloquently outlined each failure in terms of some of the organs of the State, so there is no point in me going back over that. Of course, the people who have expressed these facts most articulately and cogently are the O'Farrell family themselves. My admiration for them is boundless. They have kept the memory and the issue around Shane's needless death alive.

There are just two bits I would like to paraphrase from the Minister's speech. He said he agrees with the O'Farrell's that had the convictions of 16 February, 23 February, 8 March, 9 May, 11 May, 8 June, 15 July and 25 July been brought to the attention of Judge O'Hagan, the outcome of this could have been so much more different. He went on to say that his report is not a report that needs to establish facts since those facts are very readily apparent from the charges laid against Gridziuska in the year leading up to the death of Shane O'Farrell. In those lines is also contained the need for the apology to the O'Farrell family because in spite of all those facts, justice was not done.

There is a poem written by Linda Ellis called "The Dash". Some people may be familiar with it. It essentially relates to a summary of people's lives. The dash is contained between the year they were born and the year that they passed away. I will go back to my original point about how careless some people are with the lives of others. That carelessness, and the carelessness of the State through various organs of State, ensured that the dash in the case of Shane O'Farrell's life denotes a very short period of time. I will quote from the poem:

For that dash represents all the time

That they spent ... [alive] on earth.

And now only those who loved them

Know what that ... [little] line is worth.

I hope in a tiny way that the moves by my colleague, the Minister for Justice, Deputy Jim O'Callaghan, today in terms of the speech he delivered, the apology he delivered and, most particularly, the commemorative piece in terms of the scholarship that is being initiated in memory of Shane O'Farrell goes some way to ensuring that the dash in his biography continues for time to come.

Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)
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As we have done for several years now, I welcome Lucia, Jim, Gemma, Pia, Aimee, Hannah and the extended O'Farrell family to the Gallery today. They are absolutely the family that would not go away, and I thank them for that, although I wish they did not have to make yet another trip to the House to try to secure justice for their son and brother Shane.

It was important that the truth of what happened that led to the death of Shane O'Farrell was outlined here today. Reading that into the record is important, but what is important is the why. I wonder as I sit here whether there are people who have spoken here today who know the why? The O'Farrell family deserve that.

Today's apology by the Government, although welcome, took far too long and has been an excruciating journey for Lucia and the O'Farrell family. The family have been forced to become campaigners for justice, meeting TDs, Ministers and successive taoisigh for years. If it were not for the tenacity, endurance and love of Lucia O'Farrell for almost 14 years, I can say with absolute certainty that this apology would not be happening today. The campaign for justice for Shane has uncovered appalling ineptitude and inexplicable actions in decisions made by An Garda Síochána, the Director of Public Prosecutions, DPP, the justice system and all of the agencies of the State that have been involved in this case. This family have been very badly let down by the systems that are supposed to protect citizens, and Shane O'Farrell paid with his life. He was a wonderful young man with a bright future ahead of him. The truth is straightforward. This should never have happened.

There are examples that were read out today of the complete incompetence that occurred again and again in this case. It is beyond comprehension that a beautiful young man, an upstanding member of the community on the cusp of making his way in the world, was killed by a criminal who fled the scene and who received a suspended sentence and a plane ticket home. It beggars belief that Shane O'Farrell was the victim not only of the man who killed him, but of the State that failed to protect him and then cruelly denied his family justice over and over again. I hope that for the O'Farrell family, today's apology brings some comfort. I know it does for other families. It brings some hope to those who right now search for the truth, those who are denied an inquest and those who are denied the truth. I refer to families like that of Joe Deacy from County Mayo who have waited almost seven years, which the Minister knows. I want Lucia O'Farrell and her family to know that whatever their decision is on how to proceed from this point, they will have my full backing and the continued support of the Sinn Féin Party. May Shane O'Farrell rest in peace. May Shane O'Farrell always be remembered.

Michael Collins (Cork South-West, Independent Ireland Party)
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I want to begin by welcoming the statement of apology delivered by the Minister for Justice in the Dáil. It is right and proper that the State formally acknowledge the multiple failings that contributed to the tragic and entirely avoidable death of Shane O'Farrell. This apology is a long overdue recognition of the pain, frustration and injustice suffered by Shane's family over the past 14 years. It represents a significant step in acknowledging the truth, namely, that the system failed Shane and failed his family.

I commend the O'Farrell family for their relentless pursuit of justice. Their dignity, resilience and commitment in the face of stonewalling and bureaucratic delay have been extraordinary. The apology is meaningful, but it must not be seen as the conclusion of this matter. Rather, it must be the beginning of real accountability and systemic reform. An apology without action is hollow. Words of regret must be matched with a sincere commitment to the uncovering of the full truth. The core question remains unanswered. How was a man with over 40 convictions, multiple breaches of bail and an outstanding warrant still free to drive on Irish roads?

Shane O'Farrell did not die in a vacuum. His death occurred within a context of chronic failures across our justice system. Policing, prosecutions, bail, monitoring and judicial oversight are not merely administrative errors; they are systemic issues with life or death consequences.

The O'Farrell family has been clear that only a full public inquiry can uncover the complete chain of failures that led to Shane's death. I fully support the call for such an inquiry, as does Independent Ireland. I call on all Members of the Oireachtas to do the same. Previous investigations, including the GSOC review, the independent review mechanism and the Haughton scoping exercise, have fallen short. These processes were narrow in scope, opaque in their methods and failed to compel or interrogate key witnesses under oath. They left the most important questions unanswered and did little to restore public confidence in our institutions.

The public has a right to know how this happened and, more importantly, how it can be prevented from happening in the future. A full public inquiry, conducted transparently and independently and with the power to compel testimony, is the only credible path forward. If our justice system is to function with integrity, it must be open to scrutiny. Shielding these failures from sunlight does a disservice not only to Shane's family, but to every family in this country. This is not about one individual or one bad decision; it is about a pattern of dysfunction that poses a risk to every person in Ireland. A public inquiry would not only serve justice for the O'Farrell family, but identify the systemic weaknesses that need urgent reform. It would provide a foundation for better interagency communication, proper bail enforcement, meaningful oversight and a justice system that prioritises public safety. Only through such an inquiry can we ensure that what happened Shane's family does not happen to another family. The Oireachtas has already voted in favour of a public inquiry. That democratic mandate must be honoured.

The Minister's apology must not be used as a political cover-up to avoid the further action that is clearly required. Upholding justice requires not just expressions of regret, but concrete steps to identify failings and implement change. We owe it to Shane, his family and every citizen of this State who expects accountability from their institutions. Shane O'Farrell's death was a tragedy but another tragedy would be letting it pass without learning from it. The apology is a start, but it is not the end.

Again, I would like to pass my condolences to Shane's family.

Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú)
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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.

Paul Gogarty (Dublin Mid West, Independent)
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On this occasion, I would like to offer my personal condolences to the family and welcome the apology given on the record to the late Shane O'Farrell. I used to say that the period between my previous tenure as a TD in 2011 and being re-elected last November was a very long time. Compared to what Shane's family has had to go through even to get this acknowledgement, I feel for the family on a personal level. As a family, they possibly have not got closure. They certainly have not got justice from the apology, but I hope this is the start of the process rather than the end of it.

We have had the two GSOC reports and the farcical excuse of an inquiry into whether to hold an inquiry. I welcome what the Minister said regarding section 53(4) of the Road Traffic Act and the 2014 legislation that was introduced, but the key factor is that there are no consequences for people who already have criminal records to stop them from reoffending, for example, the threat of further sentencing or, more importantly, other measures. We have a very small amount of time and I hope will go into the minutiae of this at a later stage.

Why should someone who has so many convictions, including for road traffic offences, be allowed to drive? Why do not we have more cases where people have curfews to prevent them from going out? Why do we not use, as Deputy Tóibín said, the measures in place to expel people with multiple criminal convictions from the country? We have enough of our own who do not face consequences. I hope that, in Shane's memory and for others, we will try to ensure that this type of scenario cannot happen again.

I also support an inquiry for the O'Farrell family. It is long overdue. This is the start. I hope the Minister will say in his final statement that this is the start of the process and an inquiry will be held.

James Geoghegan (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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I want to acknowledge Jim, Lucia, Aimee, Pia, Hannah and Gemma who are in the Distinguished Visitors Gallery. I acknowledge the apology that has been issued on behalf of the State by the Taoiseach, the Tánaiste and the Minister for Justice.

I first spoke with Lucia almost 12 years ago on the telephone. We have heard many people speak of the engagement Lucia has had in this building. I was then somebody who had recently qualified as a barrister, not having practised and with a limited knowledge of the criminal justice system in truth. I spoke to a woman who was deep in grief for her son. In every conversation I had with her, she identified to me the number of challenges she witnessed throughout the process of dealing with the grief of the death of her son and how the criminal justice system pursued his assailant. In each of those conversations, Lucia brought this person, Shane, whom I had never met, to life. I think I spoke to her four, five or six times on the phone. Subsequently, I was sent a series of documentation, which I reviewed like many others in the House did.

Only a couple of weeks ago, some 12 years later and now a Member of Dáil Éireann, I met Lucia again. What struck me when I met Lucia was how, for her, time was still so frozen. The grief she expressed to me on the telephone 12 years ago was still ever present, and yet the adoration and love for her son was precisely the same. The memories of him were the same. He was as much alive in her memories then as he was 12 years ago when she spoke to me on the phone. One of the ways in which we can pay tribute to our media in some respects is that, very often when incidents of crime occur, we see lots of pictures of the perpetrators of those crimes, but in Shane's case, we have seen his beautiful smiling face throughout this period in which justice has been sought for him.

It is impossible for me to even consider, contemplate or even remotely understand the loss that every member of the O'Farrell family has felt over the years since Shane's passing. I now have my own kids; I did not then. I now have my own family. I cannot possibly imagine how I would feel to lose a child and then, having lost that child, not receive justice for the manner in which he died. If there is any case that demonstrates to the Irish public how cold the State can sometimes be to victims, it is the case of Shane O'Farrell. It is simply an extraordinary stain on the State that, once again, a family has had to fight for years after years after years to receive justice. He did not receive justice in the criminal justice system. As the Minister for Justice has acknowledged today, he shares the opinion of the O'Farrell family that had the criminal justice system appropriately dealt with the person who killed him, Shane might be alive here today. That must be an appalling pill to swallow, and something that absolutely needed to be acknowledged. I praise the Minister for doing so.

Not only is it the case that the justice system failed the O'Farrell family in advance of losing their son, but the system has failed the family in every month and year since. When I listened to Deputy John McGuinness speak earlier, whom I know has been to the forefront of raising these issues in the Dáil, it made me as a new Member of the Dáil ponder just how important the privilege of the Dáil is and how we use Dáil privilege. In truth, if Lucia had not come into the Dáil or Seanad as many times as she did, the O'Farrells may have been a family who never got justice. They may have been given the runaround in the courts system. They may have never got this apology. That is the reality. It is the sad reality that there are almost certainly families throughout the country who could not endure what the O'Farrell family have put themselves through to arrive at a day like today but, my God, are they a credit to Shane. It is unquantifiable to recognise, see and feel a family who have worked so hard to keep Shane's memory alive. It is an appropriate and proportionate announcement that the Minister has made in respect of memorialising Shane as a law graduate in UCD. In any conversation I had with Lucia, she reminded me of how far he could have gone. I think of this as someone who has gone through that career and worked as a barrister for ten years, and what contribution Shane could have made to the legal system. He is making a contribution to the legal system by virtue of the scholarship the Minister has announced today. Forevermore, if you are a student of law in UCD, you will know this story. You will hear this story.

I hope this story will contribute not just to the statutory changes the Minister has outlined today, which I welcome, but to a further rethink of how we treat victims in the State. It is the case that laws have changed in the State since Lucia and the O'Farrell family set out on their quest for justice. We have a victims of crime Act now, which essentially transposes EU victims of crime legislation into Irish legislation. It provides victims with greater involvement in the criminal justice process. However, it is still the case that victims feel they do not get the justice they deserve and they are forced to bring their case to the courts. This is something we need to consider at the outset, in the same way as we are doing in many other areas of the State, particularly when it comes to clinical negligence.

Where there are people who are wronged by the State in the criminal justice system and where there are victims who are wronged by the criminal justice system, and they are forced to use the only means by which they think they can vindicate the rights of the victim through bringing their action to court, it is incumbent on the State to review and consider how we can respond to that case in the most expeditious, fair and proportionate way. This is so that we do not do what the State did to the O'Farrell family, retraumatising them for more than a decade by not providing the type of justice that Shane richly deserved.

I have nothing further to say other than to wish every member of the O'Farrell family the absolute best. Well done to all of you for bringing Shane's memory alive today. I hope this apology does go some way to giving them some measure of justice, which they all so much deserve.

Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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I acknowledge the O'Farrell family, who are in our Distinguished Visitors Gallery. I acknowledge Lucia and Jim, Shane's parents, and Gemma, Pia, Aimee and Hannah, his beloved sisters. I first met Lucia and Jim many years ago here in Leinster House. I was serving as the Sinn Féin justice spokesperson at the time. I will never forget that meeting. Lucia had a framed picture of Shane. She took me through what had happened. At that point, it had happened in recent times. There was the grief of this family, who are a role model Irish family. They are hard-working and decent and they have done everything that you are supposed to do. I could see the profound injustice that was burning in Lucia and Jim. They have continued to inspire all of us who have met them over the years. My wife, Sinéad, worked with Mary Lou McDonald and, because of that, she worked with Lucia. As a mother, she really identified with the pain.

Sinéad, like many Irish people, sends her deep love to Shane's family for everything they endured. They were failed twice. They lost their beloved son and brother due to an appalling litany of failure in our criminal justice system. It was wilful neglect and absolutely appalling beyond belief. They have to get up every day without him in their lives but then they were failed again because every door they knocked on was slammed. The answer to every question they asked was held back, delayed or procrastinated upon.

I thank the Minister for his statement today. It was heartfelt and comprehensive, as it needed to be, but any citizen who looks at the scale of the failure will see it is beyond belief, in respect of our bail system. The Minister is aware of the suspicion that this criminal, this evil man was a Garda informer and was protected by the very people who are supposed to protect us. This family was grievously failed.

I am pleased there will be a monument to Shane's memory in the scholarship to UCD and I welcome that there will be legislative change, but the Irish people owe a debt of gratitude to the O'Farrell family. They have shone a light on the utter failures of our criminal justice system, how the parts do not talk to one another and how it sometimes protects evil people and fails us all. The greatest memorial to their beloved son and brother will be that laws will change and people will be inspired to fight the system against all odds. No matter how long it takes, they will get justice because justice and righteousness are on their side.

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary South, Independent)
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Today's apology by the Government is long overdue. While welcome, it cannot undo the deep pain and injustice endured by the O'Farrell family for more than a decade. Shane O'Farrell was a bright, compassionate young man whose life was stolen in the most avoidable of circumstances and the system utterly failed him.

I salute the O'Farrell family who are here today for all the work they have done. From the outset I stood with Lucia and the family. Why would I not? It was my duty. I salute the courage of, and pursuit of truth by, the O'Farrell family. The facts are undeniable. The man who killed Shane should not have been on the roads that day. He had a litany of offences and was in breach of bail, a suspended sentence and probation orders. Yet, the State through its courts, prosecution services and An Garda turned a blind eye. We in this House cannot pretend this was a tragic accident alone. It was a systematic failure compounded by cover-up, delay and the disgraceful treatment of a grieving family.

I consistently called for a public inquiry, not for limited reviews or reports written behind closed doors, but a transparent, independent tribunal with the power to compel witnesses to get to the heart of the matter. This apology must be followed up with action. Words mean nothing without justice. As I said, I do not have great faith in it.

I welcome the Minister's words and apology and commend him on the scholarship in memory of Shane, but we have too many legacies. I go back to the Fr. Niall Molloy case from the 1980s who was murdered in a house. I can talk about the Strokestown Four, a recent case, or the Omagh and Monaghan bombings and the fact we did not have a public inquiry into the Omagh bombing. I sat in my office and met the garda who drove the bomb to the Border that night, but nothing was done about it. The Government parties will not even co-operate with the British inquiry into the Omagh bombing in Northern Ireland. They are laggards in that respect. Many other families are left there, so I do not know what hope Lucia and her family will take away from this debate.

It is grand to debate it. The Leas-Cheann Comhairle, knows, as he, like me, has been raising it for more than a decade, that it is the system that covers up like this. Lucia O'Farrell is still fighting to get statements and information and she cannot even find out whether the man who killed her son is in this jurisdiction now or where he is. She will not be told. She is not being treated respectfully by An Garda Síochána, which is shameful. Judge O'Hagan had all these strong words that he would send him to jail. Was there any follow-up on that? Did he not have any powers to ask why he was not told? It is a sad vista. I could call it GUBU but I will not. It is systematic in our State. Cover-up and circling of the wagons is going on and will continue to go on, and it is shameful.

Carol Nolan (Offaly, Independent)
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A mother's unwavering love for her son, a family's courageous determination to overcome the obstacles, denials, bureaucratic indifference and outright hostility to own up to the wrong perpetrated on Shane has brought us to this day. The last email I received from Shane's mother, Lucia, was in July after I co-signed a Private Members' motion calling for action and justice for Shane. Lucia has always been a model of the fiercely protective love that Irish mothers are known for. She is a model to us all of the value of persistence and the pursuit of justice. Her beloved son, Shane, never left her heart before or after the moment of his tragic and unlawful death brought about by a reckless cowardly criminal.

We are here today to honour Shane and his family, his sisters and his dad, Jim. Nothing we can do can return Shane to his family but we can take action to ensure no family ever has to endure this kind of brutalising treatment at the hands of the State, including the courts and other authorities, again. I hope today is a small step in that direction.

Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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I am glad to get the opportunity to welcome Shane's family, Jim and Lucia and their girls. I am sorry they had to go through so much to get recognition for what happened on that fateful night. I commiserate with them on the loss of their son and thank them for doing so much to try to protect his name and to ensure he got the proper recognition he and they deserve.

I thank the Minister for doing the honourable thing this evening and the Government for making the apology that is so deserved. It matters because a terrible wrong was done. A man who should not have been on the road, should not even have been loose, was and the whole thing was covered up for many years. It is only right that we and the Government make the apology they deserve. I hope they can clear their minds.

His family will never forget Shane or cease to miss him, but at lease the burden and the fight they were carrying for many years to get recognition is over. They cannot bring him back but at least right is being done as far as the Government and the Minister are concerned. I am grateful that this is happening tonight. I wish the family the best for the future because they deserve it.

Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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Like all other speakers, I welcome Jim and Lucia and their daughters to the Distinguished Visitors' Gallery this evening. I am glad the Minister made the apology on behalf of the State. It was overdue. His words were clear about the terrible injustice that was done to the O'Farrell family on the tragic loss of life of their son, who was killed by a person who should not have been at large at that time in 2011.

The Minister and other speakers outlined the litany of criminality the particular individual who took Shane's life was involved in. He had been before many courts, North and South. It was a litany of criminality that unfortunately led to the loss of life of a fine young talented individual from an excellent family.

The Minister, the Leas-Cheann Comhairle and other speakers outlined in detail the huge amount of work the O'Farrell family, especially Lucia, did in itemising what happened. In doing that research, she outlined with great clarity the sequence of events and criminality and how the State failed Shane and his family.

Like many Members, I met Lucia and her family on many occasions. I still remember when, in her own house, she outlined in detail the sequence of events and non-appearance of this particular individual in the courts, North and South. It was with absolute clarity and down to the finest detail. I am glad the Minister recognised that in his contribution.

The Leas-Cheann Comhairle will recall himself, the Minister and myself having many conversations over the years regarding the need for the concerns of the O'Farrell family dealt with in the proper way. Unfortunately, it has taken considerable time to get to this position today but the Minister's statement is very welcome. Like other contributors to this debate, I again record the great grace and dignity in the way in which Lucia, her husband and their daughters went about campaigning, putting the truth before all of us and outlining again, with absolute clarity, the litany of convictions and criminality and how the State had failed Shane.

I take this opportunity to say Lucia and her family have done the State a great service in what has to have been awfully difficult circumstances to campaign for justice for a son who was taken away so wrongly by a criminal who should not have been at large at that time in our country or in any other country.

John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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That concludes statements. I thank the O'Farrell family again for being here with us. I thank all the Members who contributed today and supported the family in the past. I wish them well.