Seanad debates

Thursday, 1 December 2005

Commissions of Investigation: Motion.

 

12:00 pm

Photo of Tony KettTony Kett (Fianna Fail)

I welcome the Minister to the House and the opportunity to speak about the establishment of the commission of inquiry into the Dean Lyons affair. It is not the first commission to be established, a commission under the stewardship of Mr. Patrick MacEntee, SC, into the Dublin and Monaghan bombings was set up only a couple of months ago.

The murders of Sylvia Shields and Mary Callanan are among the most callous and brutal ever carried out in this State. They shocked the country and caused concern and anxiety in the area where they happened, off the North Circular Road in Grangegorman, an area I represented for many years. The occupants of these houses would have been known to me and I would have knocked on the door of this house on many occasions while campaigning.

It would be difficult to imagine two more vulnerable people to have been subjected to such an assault, living as they were in sheltered accommodation under the guidance of the health authority. I commend the Minister for establishing a commission to investigate the whole scenario and everything that befell these poor innocent people. I am also heartened to know that the inquiry will have full statutory powers to investigate all matters and it will be able to take sworn evidence as well. This is important because we have seen situations in the past where investigations did not have the necessary powers to come up with the goods. I am also encouraged that an expert group is being set up to examine and report on general Garda training and procedures for dealing with vulnerable witnesses.

Three families have been deeply scarred by the events surrounding these murders, those of the murdered women and that of the late Dean Lyons. After seven years the families of the two victims still do not know who murdered them while the Lyons family is no nearer knowing how a young man in Garda custody could end up signing a statement confessing to a murder he did not commit. Justice for these families should begin and end as swiftly as possible but not so quickly that we do not get the full facts. We must bring about closure.

The episode began for poor Dean Lyons on the morning of 25 July when he was arrested in his bed in the Salvation Army hostel for homeless men in the inner city. Many of them, like Dean Lyons, would have been heroin addicts. He was taken from there to the Bridewell Garda station where he was put into a cell for eight hours. Unfortunately, to add to his situation, he was barely literate and given to be fanciful with his imagination. Bearing that in mind, and the fact that he was suffering from withdrawal symptoms, having taken heroin in Benburb Street that day with a friend, he was probably not in the mental or physical condition to be involved in a prolonged interrogation.

We are told his answers during interrogation were confused and rambling and, in some instances, nonsensical. Under pressure and perhaps to escape the situation, he may have confessed the killings. In fairness, he also confessed to those killings to his mother at a later stage. At this point the gardaí were within their rights to do what they did. Dean Lyons had been placed in the frame by a low level informant, who was also a heroin addict, who had said Dean was making these statements about the murders to him. He probably, however, embellished the story to make himself look good in the eyes of the gardaí. Irrespective of that, the gardaí were within their rights in eliminating Dean Lyons from their investigations because he had been put in the frame in the first instance.

What happened thereafter is where the Garda investigation could be questioned. It appears that the confession was taken without the benefit of audio or video taping. That is why we are still talking about the case after seven years. The statement taken from Dean Lyons appears accurate when compared to the events of the day. It is critical that a statement could be so accurate in details about the murder scene and weapon and other aspects. The fact that it was taken from an individual later shown to be innocent raises serious questions. It suggests that it either came from someone who was at the murder scene or from the interrogators. Hopefully the inquiry will bring those answers to us. It is in everyone's interests that these matters are brought to a close. As long as they remain unresolved, a shadow will hang over the Garda in terms of this investigation.

There are many people affected by this, including the family and friends of Dean Lyons, those of the murder victims and, indeed, the families of Carl and Catherine Doyle who were killed in Roscommon. These people were murdered in a brutal manner similar to the murders in Grangegorman. The man who was arrested for those murders, three weeks after Dean Lyons had been charged, gave evidence to the effect that he murdered the two victims in Grangegorman. If the gardaí had not lost their focus after Dean Lyons confessing, could the incident in Roscommon have been avoided? They lost their focus for three weeks because they thought they had the killer of the two women in Grangegorman.

The Garda Síochána now found itself in the situation where it had two confessions to one murder and, consequently, were unable to bring charges against the individual who confessed to the Roscommon murders. As the Minister said, this situation is still live and we hope that the person who murdered the two ladies will eventually be held accountable and that the commission will help to achieve that outcome. In general, the Garda has had a bad few years given what happened in Donegal and in this case. That is unfortunate but the Garda has only a little work to do to bring about a scenario where members are completely and absolutely trusted by the public. There are question marks over the force. I speak to young children regularly and they do not hold the Garda in the esteem I held the force when I was growing up. They say the Garda takes the soft option at times when that should not be the case.

The Garda Síochána Bill 2004 includes many fine provisions, which will bring the force's operation into the 21st century when it is enacted. I have observed the Minister's work over the past number of years and a number of fine Bills have been passed by the House, which, in the fullness of time, will bring about a much better situation for all of us living on this island.

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