Eoghan Harris (Independent)

I move:

That Seanad Éireann:—

having considered the circumstances surrounding the compulsory retirement from the Irish army of Lt. Dónal de Róiste in 1969;

noting that the former Lt. Dónal de Róiste was denied the opportunity to rebut or answer the charges made against him at a trial or court-martial;

noting in particular that he was—

(i) refused any fair opportunity to present his case;

(ii) refused access to legal advice;

(iii) denied access to the files on his case;

(iv) never informed of the allegations made against him;

(v) never given the right to be heard in his own defence;

noting also that subsequently the law was amended ensuring that such a process cannot occur again;

and while acknowledging that, under Bunreacht na hÉireann, the supreme command of the Defence Forces is vested in the President and in view of the fact that, in 1969, Lt. Dónal de Róiste's commission was withdrawn by the President on the advice of the Government and that he was compulsorily retired from his position as a commissioned army officer;

is nonetheless, concerned at the lack of procedural fairness and the denial of the principles of natural justice to Lt. de Róiste; and

therefore, in the light of all these circumstances and in the interests of natural justice, calls on the Minister for Defence to request and advise the President to revoke and reverse the withdrawal of Lt. Dónal de Róiste's commission.

People know I am not a bleeding heart. I supported the provisions of section 31 in the Broadcasting Act when in RTE, which kept members of the provisional IRA off the air, and I support selective internment. The case of Dónal de Róiste is one that would move the hardest heart.

I will begin by saying that former Second Lieutenant de Róiste is his own worst enemy. He is a person unfitted for the Army because he would not hurt a fly. Everybody who knows him is moved by him as a guileless, innocent class of a person. He is the type who would very easily find himself in the wrong company and not know it. This happened 41 years ago and it was a different country at the time. In 1969 we entered a period of arms trials where future taoisigh and Ministers were before the courts. In retrospect, what was alleged against Lieutenant de Róiste looks like very small beer.

One of the great advantages of the Seanad is that there is privilege to say the kinds of things that are in ordinary people's minds. In the weeks in which I tried to get people to listen to me about Lieutenant de Róiste, I found the normal human reaction was that there could not be any smoke without fire. The truth is that on Friday, 25 April 1969, Second Lieutenant Dónal de Róiste was retired from the Army on advice to the President by the Minister for Defence on very thin grounds.

He was never formally charged but the scuttlebutt that went around came down to the fact that he was in O'Donoghue's pub playing the tin whistle in the company of people who were in Saor Éire. One of those people wanted to buy a car and Second Lieutenant de Róiste, who knew about transport, said there was an auction of used vehicles in Clancy Barracks. The person from Saor Éire came to the auction.

I have been reading the case files thoroughly for a long time. Although I cannot prove it, I believe it was that action of inviting people in Saor Éire to come to a barracks containing sensitive ordnance, particularly ammunition, that made the Army intelligence anxious about de Róiste as a security risk.

Mr. de Róiste did not obtain natural justice. He was apprehended and interrogated without being informed as to the nature of his offences. He was in a state of shock and trauma. To understand that shock and trauma, one would have to understand Mr. de Róiste's family. His father was one of the old guard - a de Valera supporter and a believer in law and order and rectitude in life. The notion that his son, an Army officer, would be under a cloud in any way shattered him. He never spoke to Dónal again. They were never reconciled, which is heartbreaking.

In 1969, Dónal de Róiste was part of a bohemian set that drank and played music in O'Donoghue's pub. Like many older Members of the House, I frequented the same pub and I would not have known Pádraic Dwyer of Saor Éire or what he looked like. Saor Éire was probably the lowest form of political organisation this country has ever seen and I do not blame Army intelligence for being concerned about Mr. de Róiste being in the company of its members. The late Pádraic Dwyer led the Saor Éire group which, a year after Mr. de Róiste was retired from the Army, shot Garda Richard Fallon in circumstances which remain murky. One could state, therefore, that Army intelligence was prescient in the context of its concerns regarding Saor Éire.

The fact is that Dónal de Róiste had no interest in subversion. A real subversive fired from the service of the Army would have boasted of his military record and his commitment to the Republic and would have consorted with the people to whom I refer for the remainder of his life. Everyone who knows the de Róiste family will be aware that in the intervening 41 years, Dónal had nothing to do with subversive elements. He continued his interest in spiritual matters and the Irish language. In that context, he strikes me as being a proto-member of the Anamchara group. That is the type of thing which interests him. The notion that Dónal would support subversion is a joke to anyone who knows him.

Ordinary people might ask why Mr. de Róiste did not take legal proceedings of some sort. People might also inquire as to why he was retired from the Army. In that context, there were approximately six options open to the Defence Forces in respect of Mr. de Róiste. However, they refused to take the other five options because each would have involved the holding of a court of inquiry or a court martial and charges would have had to have been laid against Mr. de Róiste. No formal charges were ever laid against him. He was interrogated, somewhat brutally, and asked if he had ever met a certain fellow in O'Donoghue's pub. Pádraic Dwyer's name was never mentioned in this regard. The documents relating to Mr. de Róiste's interrogation were not made available until 2002, more than 30 years after his being retired from the Army.

A number of questions arise in respect of this matter. Why, for example, did Mr. de Róiste's solicitor not take action in respect of the matter? It turns out that his solicitor's letter was not sent in time. When it finally was sent at some point in 1969, Mr. de Róiste had already been retired from the Army. Why did Mr. de Róiste not take a High Court case? Anyone who knows human beings will know the answer to that question. A person who comes from a strong Fianna Fáil family and whose father said that he must have done something wrong would not be in a fit condition to defend himself. Mr. de Róiste suffered from what is now referred to as post-traumatic stress disorder and could not cope with the situation in which he found himself. He was interviewed by the Judge Advocate General in 1969 who stated that Mr. de Róiste appeared to be flippant and indifferent. Anyone could recognise his state of mind at that time. In essence, he had tuned out because he was about to be fired from the Army.

The de Róiste family was not wealthy enough to send Dónal to college, so he went into the Army instead. On the day on which he was commissioned, the members of his family were extremely proud. During his interview with the Judge Advocate General, he was asked whether he had consorted with various individuals. With the exception of questions as to whether he knew a fellow named Pádraic, these individuals were never named. According to the Judge Advocate General, Mr. de Róiste could not provide any answers and appeared to be flippant and indifferent. These are the hallmarks of a person suffering from acute post-traumatic stress disorder being informed that his Army career is over and that his beloved father will be ashamed of him for the remainder of his life.

Effectively, Mr. de Róiste did nothing but nurse his wounds for almost 30 years. During the general rough and tumble of the 1997 presidential election campaign, however, Adi Roche was contacted by the Irish Examiner and other newspapers in respect of her brother. I must declare that I do not have clean hands in this regard. I was contacted by the Daily Star and asked, in my capacity as a spin doctor, what I thought about the matter. I provided what I still believe to be good advice, namely, that I thought Adi Roche was insane if she believed she could become President of Ireland in view of the fact that her brother had been dismissed from the Army by a previous holder of that office. I could not fathom why Ms Roche did not understand that.

I did not give any further thought to the matter because, like most human beings, I presumed that which is must be right. I was of the view that whatever was done must have been all right. Everyone is aware, on foot of the case of the Birmingham Six, how dangerous is such an assumption. I am convinced that I was wrong not to examine the details of the case in 1997. As Karl Marx stated, however, nothing is wasted. I remained alert in respect of this case and monitored developments. The dirty tricks campaign which Mr. de Róiste believed was perpetrated against his sister during the 1997 presidential election campaign galvanised him into taking a High Court action. In 1999, the court ruled against him on the grounds that there had been an inordinate delay in bringing proceedings. That delay was basically due to the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder. No normal man fails to take a court case for 30 years unless he is suffering from deep depression. Mr. de Róiste appealed to the Supreme Court, which upheld the High Court's decision. As a result, all doors were closed.

Mr. de Róiste took the next step by approaching a very fine investigative journalist, Don Mullan, who wrote a wonderful book, Speaking Truth to Power, about the matter. Mr. Mullan has a secondary theory that there was a cover-up involved but neither Dónal de Róiste nor I subscribe to this. The substantive case put forward by Mr. Mullan is unanswerable. I am not a lawyer and it would not be possible for me to go into the nitty gritty of the de Róiste case, which is a Kafkaesque mosaic of double-dealing, confusion and misunderstanding. I recommend, therefore, that Members read Mr. Mullan's book. However, the broad contours of the case are clear. There was a 30-year delay before Mr. de Róiste tried to clear his name. The High Court found that this delay was too long and the Supreme Court upheld that decision. In 2002, the Judge Advocate General, following the publicity generated by Mr. Mullan's book, opened an inquiry, which found that Mr. de Róiste had been dismissed on reasonable grounds. In 2005, the beginnings of a glimmer of justice began to appear when Mr. de Róiste again went before the High Court. In his decision in respect of the case, Mr. Justice Quirke stated:

By failing to provide the applicant with access to the relevant documents the JAG and the Minister deprived the applicant of the opportunity to make meaningful and informed representations to the JAG within the process directed towards the vindication of his right to his reputation and good name.

A conscious decision was made on behalf of the Minister to deprive the applicant of access to documents to which he was (then), apparently lawfully entitled. The decision was made at the commencement of a process which directly concerned the applicant and was investigating (a), an earlier decision taken by a former Minister for Defence and (b), the conduct of members of the Defence Forces.

That was patently unfair to the applicant.

There have been long delays and a continual kicking for touch in respect of this matter over the years. This matter was raised in the Dáil by Senator Boyle, when he was a Member thereof, and also by Deputies Shatter and Allen. In light of those long delays, it shows enormous moral courage on the part of the Taoiseach to answer the motion we tabled in the way he has done. Effectively, Mr. de Róiste has been offered a review. I welcome the long-belated decision to grant him that review.