Michael McDowell (Independent)

I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Brophy, here today and indicate that I, in general, support the two motions which are being brought before the House today. The Offences Against the State Act is a far-reaching Act and the powers conferred by it on An Garda Síochána are far-reaching, including detention and the routing of cases investigated under it to the Special Criminal Court unless there is an intervention to send them to the ordinary courts, as the Minister of State outlined.

I think, however, we should be very conscious in this House of the nature of the powers we are conferring on An Garda Síochána and the seriousness of any abuse of those powers. I raised here last week the unfortunate death of Evan Fitzgerald, who took his own life in Carlow Shopping Centre, having been charged a year earlier with possession of firearms and having been remanded on bail by the District Court in Naas. I just want to put on the record that this was a case of entrapment. Apparently Mr. Fitzgerald sought firearms on the dark web, the protonmail aspect of the dark web. Apparently Interpol or some other international agency alerted the Garda to this inquiry. The response of the Garda was to arrange to meet Mr. Fitzgerald and to conclude a deal with him in which gardaí persuaded him to take an automatic rifle and a semi-automatic pistol for a price of €2,700. They then arranged to meet him for delivery of these firearms for a price of €2,700. Mr. Fitzgerald came with two childhood friends, with whom he often went camping in the woods and who had been his best friends all his life, and they took delivery of the firearms in the car of one of his friends. The car proceeded some distance away to another place, where it was intercepted members of An Garda Síochána, who smashed the windows, dragged out the occupants and made an arrest. The weapons in question had been disabled, were not capable of discharge and were taken from the Garda's own reservoir of seized firearms.

When the matter came before the District Court, the Garda initially opposed bail. When eventually bail on certain conditions was granted, the District Court judge, Desmond Zaidan, who had been told on sworn evidence that the allegation was that these individuals purchased these firearms on the dark net but that these individuals were not involved in organised crime - those words were spoken to him - very naturally later asked, "When you say the dark web, do you have any idea who was selling them on the dark web?" A member of An Garda Síochána, in sworn evidence, told him, "That is an ongoing investigation. At this stage I wouldn't want to", and the judge said, "Compromise the trial", and he said, "That is an ongoing investigation on the dark web." I just want you to think about that, that a judge was considering whether bail should be given to these accused, three young men who he said appeared to him to be young and naive, and the gardaí had informed the court that they had wanted the weapons to shoot them in the woods, but the gardaí wanted to deprive them of bail, which meant being imprisoned pending trial, due to what they said was the seriousness of the charge. It is a shocking thing, I have to say, that untrue and misleading evidence would be given to a judge of the Irish District Court in these circumstances, leaving him in the dark that these were decommissioned weapons supplied in a controlled delivery by members of An Garda Síochána in a setup of one naive man and his two childhood friends. I believe that is a shocking thing which needs investigation.

It raises the fundamental question of entrapment. I am not against entrapment if it is the only way to prove that a big drug dealer is bringing in massive quantities of drugs. I am not against entrapment and that controlled deliveries would take place if a terrorist organisation is importing arms, but these young men, who the judge, just looking at them, said were young and naive, were entrapped in these circumstances. I asked last week for the Minister for justice to come in and debate the circumstances in which entrapment was used. We are extending, under this legislation, powers under the Offences Against the State Act which end up with situations such as I have described. It is absolutely of the greatest importance that there should be an immediate investigation and full accountability, from the Commissioner down, as to how sworn evidence would be given to a judge of the Irish District Court which was misleading and left him in the dark, and not alone left him in the dark but left the accused in the dark to the point where they were prohibited from communicating with each other for a whole year. In that dark despairing year, Evan Fitzgerald decided to take his own life by shooting himself with a neighbour's shotgun. That is what happened, and I am demanding that there be accountability. I am saying to this House that we cannot tolerate untruths being told to an Irish District Court judge and we certainly cannot allow a situation where the judicial process is deployed on a false basis to deprive people of their liberty and to conceal from members of the Judiciary the true facts when they are determining whether someone should be granted bail.