Bereaved mother leads calls for reform of bail laws

Shane O'Farrell was fatally injured when struck by a car driven by someone who was in breach of bail conditions

The family of Shane O'Farrell who was killed by a hit-and-run driver who should have been in jail at the time of the collision (left to right) Hannah, Jim, Lucia, Gemma, Aimee and Pia O'Farrell at Leinster House last year. Lucia O'Farrell said gardaí need the power to arrest a person who they reasonably suspect is in breach of bail without warrant and return the person to the court.

A mother whose son was killed by a criminal who was out on bail in a hit-and-run incident, has urged the Government to adopt expert recommendations to improve bail laws.

Lucia O’Farrell said Shane, aged 23, was fatally injured when struck by a car driven by someone who was in breach of bail conditions. The driver, Zigimantas Gridziuska, hit Shane as he was cycling his bike near his home in Carrickmacross, Co Monaghan, in August 2011.

Speaking on hearings about bail conditions at the Oireachtas justice committee on Tuesday, Ms O’Farrell said her son was a “beautiful soul”.

She told members: “We simply adored him, he will remain a great loss to us, until we join him. 

To lose a child is the end of everything, of time itself and the time left unwanted. 

"Losing a child to violence and another person’s actions causes great grief with a profound sense of injustice, and anger — the life that was taken and the future that was stolen.” 

Ms O’Farrell, accompanied by her husband Jim, said Gridziuska had committed 30 offences while on bail over a two-year period.

“Repeated breaches of bail were known but not acted upon, that is the real worry,” she said. "You couldn't make it up the level of failings".

Ms O'Farrell said gardaí need the power to arrest a person who they reasonably suspect is in breach of bail without warrant and return the person to the court.

She said the entire system "desperately needs root-and-branch reform" and that while nothing would make her son's heart "beat again", the changes might prevent the tragedy being repeated.

She said she backed the recommendations of Lorcan Staines, whose review of bail laws for the Department of Justice was published last November.

“The report found that while bail laws go as far as constitutionally possible, the system operates in a ‘cumbersome, inefficient, inconsistent, and haphazard manner’,” explained Ms O’Farrell.

She urged the Government to implement a recommendation by the Commission on the Future of Policing in Ireland in its September 2018 report to transfer court prosecutions from gardaí to state solicitors.

Aoife O’Leary, of the Bar Council, said it appeared that the Garda PULSE system “does not adequately identify when a person is on bail, has breached bail conditions, or has committed offences while on bail”. She said it also appeared to lack an effective mechanism for managing multiple concurrent bail bonds across different matters and districts.

Gary Mulchrone, a criminal law solicitor representing the Law Society, said the level of training given to gardaí on bail was “varied”, with “inconsistent” practice.

“A judge deciding on an application for bail relies on the information provided by An Garda Síochána,” he said. “In practice, this information does not always include whether or not the accused has already committed offences while on bail, or whether they already breached previous bail conditions.” 

He said many of the issues — also highlighted in the Staines review — were budgetary, including investments in the Garda and Courts Service IT systems.

Saoirse Brady, executive director of the Irish Penal Reform Trust, said 2024 figures show the “vast majority” of offences committed by people on bail were minor. She said affordability of bail appears to be a factor driving remand rates, with almost one in five people in prison now on remand.

Ms Brady said many people with mental health needs were being committed to prison, with 2,425 people last March on a waiting list to access psychology services in jails. With backing from the Law Society, she called on the Government to expand bail supervision to adults, adding that it had proven to be successful in relation to juveniles.

• Cormac O’Keeffe, security correspondent