THE RETURN of a 500-year-old medical text book to Marsh’s library – its owner – by an anonymous barrister who recently acquired it was an exemplary act. He had bought the item in a junk shop before later recognising its historical significance and rarity value.
He returned the book promptly to its rightful owner – a century after the library had lost it. The finder sought neither public recognition nor financial reward for his honourable act in recovering and restoring a lost treasure. His civic spirited response is in marked contrast to the criminal act of thieves who recently stole a relic – the heart of St Laurence O’Toole – from Christ Church Cathedral in Dublin, by removing it from a tightly sealed and barred iron cage.
The theft of religious relics from churches is part of a new and disturbing pattern of criminal activity in recent months. Just as some thieves have robbed valuable relics from inside churches, others have robbed churches from the outside. They have stripped and stolen lead from roofs and resold the metal to the scrap metal industry.
The global shortage of base metals has driven up demand, and raised scrap metal prices as the economies of developing countries, like China, rapidly expand. Supply shortages for steel, copper and aluminium have created a lucrative opportunity for criminal gangs, which they have exploited. Scrap metal gangs have stolen everything from road plates and cables to manhole covers and beer kegs for resale to scrapyards. However, as some scrap-metal companies do not require proof of ownership of the metals they buy, criminals – it would seem – can dispose of their stolen goods with much less risk of detection.
In Britain, where there has been a major public outcry about the scale of scrap metal crime, the government has promised to introduce legislation to outlaw cash transactions for scrap metal sales.
Here, a Private Members’ Bill tabled by Independent TD Mattie McGrath, which sought to regulate cash-for-gold and scrap metal trading, was rejected by the Government as well-intentioned, but unworkable. However, Minister for Justice Alan Shatter has said he awaits the outcome of recommendations on the relevant law by An Garda Síochána, and on the production of a detailed metal theft and crime prevention plan. Then he will decide what regulatory measures are needed to provide a proportionate and effective response to the challenge of scrap metal crime.