Family protest treatment by Morris Tribunal

Frank McBrearty Jnr has submitted a petition to the European Parliament claiming his family’s lack of legal aid in the Morris Tribunal goes against his human rights, it emerged today.

The submission to the Parliament’s Petitions Committee outlines the alleged campaign of harassment by garda against the McBrearty family and the state’s failure to afford them the same level of legal representation as other parties before the tribunal.

The committee is being asked to determine if the decision to deny legal costs to the McBrearty family’s team of lawyers is contrary to the spirit of the European Union’s Charter of Fundamental Rights.

The petition, which was submitted on Friday, is being supported by Fine Gael MEP for the North West, Senator Jim Higgins, who will be making an oral presentation to the committee’s chairman on Tuesday.

In the statement Mr McBrearty Jnr condemns the way he says his family were treated during the murder investigation into the death of Raphoe cattle dealer Richie Barron, who was later found to have died in a hit and run accident.

He also criticises the state’s failure to grant legal aid to his family at the Morris Tribunal into alleged Garda corruption in Donegal, and the terms of reference for the tribunal.

Mr Higgins said that although members of the McBrearty family had been arrested for a crime they had no part in and that 160 breaches of licensing laws brought by Gardai against their premises had been dropped by the Director of Public Prosecutions, they were still unrepresented by lawyers at the Tribunal.

On the other hand, he said, Garda representative bodies, the Garda Commissioner and the Minister for Justice all had legal representation.

“There is a glaring injustice here to which Minister Michael McDowell continues to turn a deliberate and indifferent blind eye,” he said.

“I am confident that the European Parliament’s Petitions Committee will rule that the Irish Government’s treatment of the McBreartys is unfair and discriminatory.”