Citizens’ rights being eroded by State, says legal expert

IRELAND is becoming a Big Brother-type state, where individual rights and freedoms are being controlled by unaccountable agencies.

Legal expert Professor Dermot Walsh said there had been a fundamental shift in the last decade in the criminal justice system at the expense of the citizen and in favour of the State and the police.

"The shift has been away from the due process model whereby the rights of the citizen are paramount - to a crime control model in which the interests of the State are paramount."