LEGISLATION EXPANDING the role of the Special Criminal Court to deal with gangland crime was passed by a substantial majority in the Dáil yesterday with one Labour TD defying his party whip by refusing to vote against the measure.
Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael TDs voted for the Criminal Justice (Amendment) Bill 2009 while the Labour Party and Sinn Féin voted against the legislation which was carried by 118 votes to 23.
However, long-serving Labour Dublin North East TD Tommy Broughan abstained. He said later that he had done so because “in the dire and urgent circumstances of drug-fuelled gangland crime, some of the provisions in the Bill are necessary”.
A Labour Party spokesman said that there was an internal party procedure in place to handle the matter. The party whip was dealing with it and would report to the leader in due course.
During the debate on the Bill Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern maintained that the objections of 133 criminal lawyers to the Bill would ultimately prove to be unfounded.
He said that 200 lawyers had objected to a change in the law two years ago which allowed previously recanted statements of witnesses to be taken in evidence and that change had worked well.
“All the hullabaloo predicted at the time by the 200 lawyers did not happen,” the Minister said. “I hazard a guess the same will be true in this case.”
On Wednesday 133 criminal lawyers wrote to The Irish Times claiming that Ireland would “be shamed” before the United Nations and the European Court of Human Rights because of the legislation. However, Mr Ahern repeated yesterday that the Bill was necessary, particularly in the aftermath of the Roy Collins murder in Limerick.
“In that case, some people waited four years to take revenge on a family and murder somebody related to somebody who gave evidence in a trial four years earlier,” Mr Ahern said.
“I am not trying to raise the Roy Collins murder above any other murder. Of course, every murder has been awful for the families of the murdered, but the Roy Collins murder was different. Clearly, the murderers were sending out a signal to anyone in that community that if they assisted in any shape or form in cases against them, they would take revenge and make an example.
“Clearly, that was a different murder to any murder that has taken place in the State. It was an attack on the people, the State and on the criminal justice system. If the Oireachtas did not respond to that attack, we were completely ignoring the level of threat and intimidation communities must suffer in their daily lives.”
Mr Ahern said the Government had the benefit of advice of Minister for Defence Willie O’Dea, TD for Limerick East, at Cabinet meetings. He added that Fine Gael TD Kieran O’Donnell, also for Limerick East, was on the Dáil record as saying there had been jury intimidation in his area and Minister of State Peter Power from the same constituency had said the same.
“Others mentioned intimidation to me privately,” Mr Ahern said. “Deputy Finian McGrath referred to it happening in areas he represents.”