Garda chief's comments over gang law questioned

LABOUR JUSTICE spokesman Pat Rabbitte questioned the intervention of Garda Commissioner Fachtna Murphy in the public debate on the controversial Criminal Justice Bill.

Mr Murphy said on Wednesday the legislation was appropriate, proportionate and necessary.

In the resumed Dáil debate on the Bill yesterday, Mr Rabbitte said many people were offering views on the legislation outside the House.

"Some people writing on it do not have any particular experience or expert knowledge, but they are still writing on it and one takes that for what it is worth," he added.

"It is unusual to see the Garda Commissioner entering public debate on a Bill going through the Oireachtas. I do not recall it happening before."

Mr Rabbitte said he had much regard for Mr Murphy, but he was also aware that when he appeared before the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Justice, "we did not get any answers to the effect that the problem was a gap in the law".

Mr Rabbitte added: "In fact, until quite recently, the Garda at the highest level opposed the Labour Party Bill on surveillance, which would permit material gathered by covert surveillance to be admissible as evidence in court.

"The then minister, Brian Lenihan, stated it was opposed because, to use his memorable phrase, it would only serve to alert criminals to Garda investigative techniques. It appears this has changed and there may be good reasons for this change, but the history should be on the record of the House."

The Criminal Justice Bill, which is aimed at tackling gangland criminals, and allows for non-jury trials and opinion evidence from gardaí and former gardaí, was passed by 118 votes to 23.

It was supported by Fianna Fáil, the Green Party, Fine Gael and Independents Michael Lowry and Finian McGrath and opposed by Labour, Sinn Féin and Independent Maureen O'Sullivan. The Bill goes to the Seanad next week, where it is set to pass all stages.

Mr Rabbitte urged Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern to accept an amendment which, he said, would require the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) to be satisfied on reasonable and objective grounds that there was a risk of jury intimidation.

The amendment, he added, would preserve the DPP's right in particular cases to send any serious offence forward for trial to the Special Criminal Court.

Mr Ahern said he was not suggesting there was any one in the House who did not want to eradicate organised crime. However, he could not accept the amendment because it could not "stand side by side" with what the Government intended to do.

"What we are trying to do is to raise the level of seriousness of organised gang crime offences to a similar level as pertained with regard to paramilitary organisations in this country," he added.

"Currently, the DPP has the power, a power he used in the Veronica Guerin situation, to send cases into the Special Criminal Court." Mr Ahern said he believed that the move was necessary, particularly in the aftermath of the Roy Collins murder.

He added: "In that case, some people waited four years to take revenge on a family and murder a person related to somebody who gave evidence in a trial four years earlier. I hear people suggest it, but I did not confuse the issue of witnesses and jurors.

"However, does anybody, for one minute, suggest that those people who murdered Roy Collins would stop at murdering or intimidating a juror just because he or she was a juror and not a witness? I do not believe they would."