Violent criminals work as bouncers, show claims

VIOLENT criminals are being engaged by security service companies to act as bouncers, it was claimed last night.

The absence of legislation and a vetting procedure has opened the doors to people with criminal records working in the security services industry.

An RTE Prime Time documentary last night identified one man, with convictions for assault, operating as a door-staff member.

Victims of his vicious assaults, businessmen Eddie Ennis and Joe Whelan, recalled the attacks in an interview with reporter Eithne O’Brien.

Furious industry representatives who helped a government-inspired consultative process to draw up recommendations admitted to being disillusioned by a slow legislative process.

Dubliner Larry Flynn, who runs the Security Institute of Ireland which provides training for door staff, insisted that regulations to vet staff and provide guidelines on training were essential and needed urgently.

“All that is needed is any one individual to give the industry a bad name,” Mr Flynn said.

Ireland is one of few countries in Europe with no legislation to regulate the industry.

The programme claimed anyone, irrespective of their back ground, could assume a bouncer’s job.

It suggested there were about 10,000 people engaged in the industry, many operating in the black economy.

The Janet Traynor-produced programme also focused on an incident at Cork’s Sidetrax nightclub last year, where CCTV cameras caught the last moments in the life of 23-year-old Adrian Moynihan as he struggled with bouncers.

Mr Moynihan, from Ballyvolane in Cork, died from asphyxia, an inquest heard. In June last, Cork coroner Myra Cullinane referred the case to the DPP after deputy state pathologist Marie Cassidy examined CCTV coverage. A decision is awaited.

A consultative group set up in 1996 to examine the industry recommended the setting up of a statutory body to regulate and operate licensing of door staff.

In the programme Bouncers, Ms O’Brien said: “In a worst-case scenario, someone could be released from prison and, without being vetted, land a bouncer’s job.

Fine Gael failed in 1999 to have a Bill introduced before the Dáil but the government, in 2001, presented its own white paper. Bill Browne, from the Union of Security Employers, was part of the consultative group which framed proposed new regulations in 1997.

Five years on, Mr Browne admitted to being disappointed by the slow legislative progress.

“In the absence of legislation, people are operating in a vacuum,” he said.