No offer of compensation, says McBrearty
Mr McBrearty jnr said he would not comment on whether he received a letter from the Chief State Solicitor seeking a meeting to discuss a compensation package.
“I can’t make any comment about my High Court case. What I can say is I’ve had no offers of compensation; I’ve had no apology from the State. I’m not sure where the stories are coming from. I’ve had no approaches.”
The Sunday Business Post reported Chief State Solicitor David J O’Hagan had written to Mr McBrearty jnr last Thursday. Sources told the newspaper the Donegal man could receive up to €3 million in compensation.
The report follows the revelation in the Irish Examiner last week that the State faced a bill of more than €15m in terms of damages and costs to the extended McBrearty family. A total of 40 people are suing the State for damages.
Justice Minister Michael McDowell announced in the media last Wednesday that the State was going to apologise and admit responsibility for what happened to the McBrearty family following the death of Richie Barron in a hit-and-run in Raphoe, Co Donegal, in October 1996.
Mr McBrearty jnr again criticised the minister yesterday for announcing this in the media rather than telling him personally in private.
He said he was going to have his day in court on Tuesday week, when his High Court civil case begins.
“We’re ready to rumble. I’ll have my day. I’ve promised the Irish people that I will expose the full truth, if not in this court, then the European Court of Human Rights.”
Some 60 witnesses have been subpoenaed for the case. The evidence is expected to be shocking, affecting parties not yet shamed in the Morris reports.
Meanwhile, Mr McBrearty jnr described as “a joke” the transfer from Donegal to Dublin of five gardaí strongly criticised in the Morris Tribunal report.
This followed a decision by Garda Commissioner Noel Conroy to allow two senior officers - Detective Superintendent John McGinley and Superintendent Joe Shelly - to retire with a €110,000 lump sum and a €37,000 annual pension.
Mr McBrearty jnr called on Mr McDowell to explain why he told Labour justice spokesman Joe Costello in the Dáil last November that, as far as he understood, the Barron case was redesignated from murder to a hit-and-run in November 2002.
This was after the establishment of the Morris Tribunal in April 2002.
Mr McBrearty jnr received an official letter from Garda Commissioner Noel Conroy in November 2004 telling him the redesignation took place in February 2002.
He said this information was also kept away from the inquest into Barron’s death in July 2002.
“Was the minister trying to cover his own back or was he not told about it? If he wasn’t told about it, the garda commissioner has to go.”
Mr Costello yesterday said it needed to be known whether the minister or the commissioner was at fault.
He said it was not acceptable that this Friday’s debate on the Morris reports was not going to be a real debate. “People will read out statements but there won’t be any questioning of the minister.”
By Mary Dundon, Political Reporter
THE Labour Party will push for a special Oireachtas Committee inquiry to be set up to examine the two Morris Tribunal reports in the Dáil later this week.
Time has been set aside in the Dáil on Friday to allow Justice Minister Michael McDowell and all the main political parties to make statements on the damning reports on Garda activity in Donegal.
But Labour’s Justice spokesman Joe Costello said yesterday the Opposition will not have time to question the minister fully on the matter.
“We will be calling for the two Morris Tribunal reports to be referred to the Oireachtas Justice, Equality and Law Reform Committee so that it can hold hearings and question all the main players,” Mr Costello said.
This would include this minister and previous Justice Ministers, Garda Commissioner Noel Conroy and all the other key gardaí involved.
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