The first and most appropriate response to the sentencing yesterday of those responsible for the death of Detective Garda Jerry McCabe must be to express a strong sense of solidarity with his family. Long after the controversy about the conduct of the trial has ended, his widow and five children will continue to endure the pain of life without a husband and father. It is to be hoped that they will find some small consolation in the public anguish, so powerfully expressed on the national airwaves in recent days, about the State's decision to replace the charge of capital murder with the lesser charge of manslaughter. There is a strong sense that this society wants to stand shoulder to shoulder with the McCabe family; that the overwhelming majority will have nothing to do with those in Sinn Fein and the IRA who would murder, in the most callous and cowardly way, a member of the Garda Siochana.
At the Special Criminal Court yesterday, Mr Justice Richard Johnson, presiding, could only impose a sentence appropriate to the actual charge before the court, namely the manslaughter of Garda McCabe. Criticism of the prison terms, ranging from 14 years to 11 years, should be viewed in this light. Judge Johnson, however, was on less certain ground when he chose to comment on the controversy which followed the dropping of capital murder charges earlier this week. Public comment of the kind heard in recent days, he said, "did nothing to serve either the interests of the law as it stands or justice". It seems extraordinary that Judge Johnson should choose to admonish the media and the public in this way. At the very least, he might have acknowledged the public's deep sense of dismay and anger about the course of the McCabe trial. And he might have commented on how justice, in this case, was served by the intimidation and harassment of witnesses in the trial.
The Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, could scarcely have been more direct in his response to the sentencing yesterday. He was glad, he said, that the murderers of Garda McCabe had been bought to justice and he reaffirmed his determination that those sentenced yesterday will serve their full terms. The public can be forgiven should it refuse to take these assurances at face value. The security correspondent of this newspaper reported yesterday on how senior Sinn Fein figures, in the final days of negotiation before the Belfast Agreement was signed, sought to ensure that those charged with the murder of Detective Garda McCabe would benefit from the early release programme. On RTE radio Mr Martin McGuinness of Sinn Fein appeared confident that his colleagues who are responsible for the death of Garda McCabe will be back on the streets after two years. It is a prospect which will send a shiver down the spine of all democrats in this State.
The response in Northern Ireland to the McCabe trial is also noteworthy. The Alliance Party has questioned whether this State is ready to "share the burden" of the prisoner release programme; the First Minister, Mr David Trimble spoke last night of "double standards" and invited comparisons between the Government's apparently tough stance in the McCabe case with its willingness to see the release of prisoners in the North, including those responsible for the murder of RUC officers. The death of an RUC officer by an IRA gang supposedly on ceasefire should provoke the same kind of outrage in the Republic as the killing of Garda Jerry McCabe. But the question raised by the Alliance Party and Mr Trimble are, nonetheless, legitimate and troubling. It is to be hoped that will serve to deepen the level of understanding in this State about the moral compromises which the people of the North are now being asked to make.