Murderer Joe O’Reilly granted legal aid for appeal

Convicted murderer Joe O'Reilly has been granted legal aid to pursue a Supreme Court appeal, a year after his miscarriage of justice bid was dismissed as an "abuse of process".

In July 2007, O'Reilly was found guilty by a Central Criminal Court jury and sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of his wife Rachel at their home in the Naul, Co Dublin on October 4th, 2004.

Ms O’Reilly’s badly beaten body was found in the bedroom of her home by her mother.

O’Reilly lost an appeal against his conviction and last year an application to have his conviction declared a miscarriage of justice was dismissed as an “abuse of process” by the Court of Appeal.

Counsel for O’Reilly, Ronan Munro BL, sought a legal aid certificate in the Court of Appeal on Friday for his client to pursue an application to the Supreme Court under its new jurisdiction.

O’Reilly is seeking leave to appeal the Court of Appeal’s decision to dismiss his miscarriage of justice bid as an “abuse of process”.

In light of developments in a separate case, Mr Justice George Birmingham said the Supreme Court seemed to take the view that applications for legal aid should be made to the Court of Appeal.

Mr Munro told the judge that O’Reilly was serving a life sentence. As such, the judge said, the issue of his means was unlikely.

If the Supreme Court was satisfied that legal aid applications should be dealt with in the Court of Appeal “that’s good enough for me”, Mr Justice Birmingham said who had indicated earlier that three judges would be required to deal with the matter.

O’Reilly was not in court for the procedural matter.