Paul Daly (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister and I also welcome and acknowledge the O’Farrell family. I compliment Senator Doherty for organising to have the O’Farrell family in for the briefing in the audiovisual room last week. While I am very familiar with this case, I was struck hearing it all again and being taken through all the instances and pitfalls that were evident before the final ending. If people were to see it on Netflix, they would not believe it to be true. They would think it is fiction. There was a tragic ending on 2 August 2011, which ended the O’Farrells’ world, I can assume, in many ways. It was definitely the lowest day of their lives and the beginning of lives they never anticipated or expected.

Going to the other end of the spectrum, in my own case, 26 April 2016 was probably the highest point of my life, and certainly the proudest day of my life and that of all my family. It was the day I was elected to Seanad Éireann for the first time. As somebody who came from a family with no previous history in politics, the pride was immense. For me to achieve the office to become, along with my colleagues, a lawmaker and custodian of the law and order of the country was a proud day. We have many knocks in this world. Not everything goes right and we get blamed for as many things as we get praised for – indeed many more. One of the proudest days is today, seeing the O’Farrell family here getting their wish. We collectively as Members of this House - those of us who were in the last Government and the Members of the Lower House - passed the motion to give them the inquiry they so richly deserved so they could get accountability and closure.

Who is the authority higher than us that reversed and changed that decision? It was agreed by both Houses. I heard in the Dáil, in answer to a similar question, that the Government does not have to accept Private Members' motions. It passed through the Government. Why did the Government change its mind? Even though there was a minority Government, a Private Members' motion does not get through both Houses unless the Government is in support of it. What changed, why did it change and who was behind the change? Everybody knows in life people have no objection to an inquiry unless they are afraid of what that inquiry may find.

Our criminal justice system has failed and it failed not just the O’Farrell family. Without adding to their grief, I wish to ask a question for one moment. They have probably imagined this as one of the questions people have when there is a fatality in a family. If the gardaí had stopped him and held him for ten seconds more, if Shane had decided it was too wet that night to go for his cycle, if this tragedy did not happen, or on it happening, if the O’Farrell family did not have the strength to carry on and keep asking the questions, would we ever have heard of Zigimantas Gridziuska? Would he still be out there? The vulnerable people of Irish society deserve the answers to those questions. How many more people like Gridziuska are out there because the system has failed? We are burying our heads in the sand as a Government to the fact that we have a problem within the criminal justice system and our policing services. The first step to solving any problem is the admission that we have a problem. While we bury our head in the sand and refuse to have an inquiry into what happened and why it happened, we will never get a solution. God knows how many more people similar to Zigimantas Gridziuska are out there tonight. We all know him now – even though we struggle to say his name. It is embedded in here. If the tragedy had not happened, would he still be out there? Would we ever know? Would we know that we have such a flawed system? We cannot bury our head in the sand.

I support all my colleagues who said we will table another motion. I will ask the question again. If and when that motion is tabled, and if and when it is passed, who is the authority or power above us who will probably stop and block it again? The scoping exercise asked more questions than it answered, but it ticked the box. It almost gave us what we agreed we wanted. It ticked that box. We agreed we wanted an independent inquiry. The Minister then asked somebody else to do a scoping exercise to know whether we really needed an independent inquiry.

In conclusion, what was the position I was elected to on 26 April 2016? What is my role and what is the role of my colleagues in this House and the Lower House if, when we pass a motion, it can still be just ticked off and another route taken that suits? And who did it suit? Who did it suit to do a scoping exercise as opposed to an independent inquiry?