Crying out for zero tolerance on the double

So John O'Donoghue is not going to be Minister for Justice after all. What a pity. We need a bit of zero tolerance right now, and surely he is our one and only man?

Even more so since it has recently emerged that the hapless Nora Owen has been deficient yet again in ensuring the rigorous investigation of alleged crime.

Our one and only man may well be in Social Welfare. There is a lot of scope for zero tolerance there but, as I explain below, there is likely to be lots and lots of tolerance of poverty.

But first, back to hapless Nora. The new crimes allegedly committed are not the run-of-the-mill offences that so inflate our crime statistics - larcenies and robberies. These are serious crimes against the person, involving grievous bodily harm to a number of people, one of whom required repeated treatments in hospitals following these alleged assaults.

Nora Owen knows the names, addresses and places of work of the alleged perpetrators of these serious offences. She has known about these allegations and the disquieting evidence supporting them for a year now and apparently done nothing at all about them. Our one and only man would surely have been on the case like Flint. We need the swashbuckling sheriff-in-waiting now more than ever but, alas, it appears he is to be shunted off to the backwater of Social Welfare. And we all know that Fianna Fail and the Progressive Democrats are committed to doing a Nora Owen in this area for five years.

Details of the alleged series of assaults were published last week in a report by a prestigious international body. Amazingly, not even the worldwide embarrassment occasioned by this publication prompted Nora Owen into action. The Department of Justice issued a limp statement and the media, obligingly, largely ignored the affair.

The allegations concern the treatment of people arrested in connection with the murder of Garda Jerry McCabe in Adare, Co Limerick, in May of last year. They are the subject of a critical review in the Amnesty International Report 1997.

Eighteen people were arrested as part of the Garda investigation into that shocking murder. Three people were subsequently charged with offences. One of them is Jeremiah Sheehy. He was held for several days in Garda custody in a Garda station in Limerick. He was brought before a court and charged with membership of the IRA and with possession of firearms. He was then remanded in custody.

On his being brought to prison, according to Amnesty International, prison officers noted his injuries and insisted that he first be taken to a hospital to record [these injuries]". Amnesty states: It was subsequently reported that the file of the police investigation into the alleged ill-treatment [of Sheehy] had been submitted to the Director of Public Prosecutions."

Another of those arrested was John Quinn. He, too, was held in Garda custody for several days and was charged with membership of the IRA and possession of ammunition. At the court hearing on June 12th last year, John Quinn's lawyer said that Quinn had received a number of injuries to his head and body while in custody at Henry Street Garda station in Limerick. The lawyer said Quinn was suffering from periods of unconsciousness and memory loss as a result of the injuries he had received and had been taken to hospital four times during the period he was in custody.

Amnesty reports that some of those who were released without charge also complained that they had been subjected to physical and psychological ill-treatment while in police custody.

Perhaps the most disquieting element of this is the revelation in the Amnesty report that "a human rights researcher reported that she was threatened with arrest while interviewing some of these people [who had been held in custody]".

Amnesty states that last October it urged the Government to carry out a full investigation into all these allegations and make public the findings. It also expressed concern about the apparent lack of adequate safeguards to prevent ill-treatment of people held in police custody and during interrogation. It noted the absence of provision for the recording of such interrogations and for the presence of lawyers during interrogations. Amnesty repeated some of these concerns to the Government again in March of this year.

And what happened? The Department of Justice replied it was reviewing" these matters it must be worn to a frazzle reviewing such matters, year after year. The Department of Justice further confirmed it was reviewing recommendations made by the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture two years ago.

A spot of zero tolerance would not go amiss here. And neither would it have gone amiss in relation to the European Committee Report of 1995. That report dealt with how prison officers first brutalised a prisoner in Limerick jail and then brutally assaulted a senior official of the prison when he sought to prevent further injury to the prisoner. Not a single prison officer would give evidence of either assault.

IT would be nice if our one and only man brought the zero-tolerance mantra to the Department of Social Welfare. Wouldn't it be nice if we had zero tolerance of poverty and inequality? If the abundant fruits of economic growth were directed at eliminating poverty within the lifetime of the government? But that is not likely, not likely at all.

In the 27-page Action Programme for the Millennium there are just two references to social welfare that I can find. The first is amid a load of blather about ban inclusive society". In a list of priorities under this heading, you might expect to find commitments to alleviating poverty within a given period. Alternatively, there might be a commitment to meet the targets on minimum social welfare payments recommended 12 years ago by the Commission on Social Welfare. And if not that, then surely a commitment to ensure that increases in social welfare payments keep in line at least with the rate of inflation. Not a bit of it.

The one item listed among priorities for an inclusive society is: "Attacking fraud and abuse of social welfare, freeing up resources to address real needs."

The only other reference to this is in a cosy section dealing with "The Family". And amid priorities in this area is "Re-focus tax and welfare system in favour of the family unit".

And not another dicky-bird about social welfare.

The Fianna Fail press office says it is dealt with in the Fianna Fail manifesto, but cannot explain why there is nothing in the programme for government.

Our one and only man will be doing a Nora Owen in Social Welfare.