The conviction of Paul Ward for the murder of journalist Veronica Guerin is an undoubted milestone in the counter-attack against organised crime. The convicted man was not the principal agent in the conspiracy to shoot Ms Guerin but he played an essential role in the planning and in the preparation of this callous crime. When the murder occurred, more than two years ago, few were prepared to offer odds in favour of anyone ever being made amenable before a court of law.
Extraordinary efforts and resources were committed to the inquiry by the Garda. It is recognised that the team of investigators under Mr Tony Hickey invested huge energy and ingenuity in their task. No small degree of personal courage was also needed. They were dealing with men who would not hesitate to kill again if it served their purposes and who were daring enough to mount their own counter-intelligence operations against the Garda operational base at Lucan. An assault on the investigation centre itself was not considered an impossibility, with the result that officers armed with semi-automatic weapons had to guard it around the clock.
It is against this background that the significance of Paul Ward's conviction must be measured. A criminal empire, comparable in its scope and ambitions to some of the paramilitary tyrannies which exist in Northern Ireland, had sprung up in the capital. Indeed, the gang which dictated that Veronica Guerin's life should be forfeit was but one of a series of such groupings. It is also against this background that the judges' devastating criticisms of the Garda's handling of aspects of the investigation must be considered.
Clearly, the gardai used every device they felt they could to bring pressure to bear upon their suspect. What happened and did not happen in the interview rooms at Lucan depends upon whose version is being spun. But it is unlikely that the judges got it wrong. The case is surely unanswerable, therefore, for the immediate provision of full audio and video taping facilities at designated Garda stations in order to avoid future controversies of this kind. That such facilities do not already exist is a telling commentary on official and political attitudes. They were first recommended in the Barra O Briain report a full 20 years ago.
Irish society is undoubtedly safer for the placing of Paul Ward behind bars. It is earnestly to be hoped that his accomplices and in particular those who directed him in his murderous enterprise will join him in time. But the case and the measures which were brought into force in the aftermath of the murder must also mark an unwelcome - if perhaps necessary - diminution in the protections offered to the citizen under the law. Three of the four "pillars" of the prosecution case against Paul Ward were effectively rejected by the judges with the defendant thus convicted on the uncorroborated evidence of the supergrass and accomplice, Charles Bowden.
It is an unhappy precedent in an Irish murder trial. From the prosecution point of view - and in particular for the Garda - it represents the vindication of their decision to set up a witness protection programme for the first time in this State. Not many jurists and fewer civil-libertarians will approve of such a development. But the average citizen is more likely to think it the lesser of two evils, if the alternative is to leave untouched, ruthless people who take to themselves the power of life and death over those, like Veronica Guerin, who get in their way.