Short term prison sentences for violent crimes 'a waste of time'
Parents of Matt O'Neill, Eileen and Pat. They believe that any attack in which someone is repeatedly assaulted when lying defenceless on the ground should automatically prove an intent to cause serious injury or death. Picture: Dan Linehan
Matt O’Neill, who was fatally assaulted outside his Carrigaline home just after Christmas in 2022, should have celebrated his 32nd birthday on Sunday.
His parents will still mark their only child’s birthday but must now do so in the knowledge that one of the men convicted of his manslaughter will be released, free to return to his Cork home near where the O’Neills live in December, just 17 months after he was sentenced.
Pat and Eileen O’Neill are now calling for changes to sentencing of violent crime and for more youth education on the impact of violence.
Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan recently visited the grieving parents at their home, to hear about Matt, the impact of his violent death, and their hopes to spur changes that could make Ireland safer for other families.
Matt was just 29 when he walked to the local garage to buy a bottle of wine on December, 28, 2022.
He was attacked in the Glenwood estate by two local males who were teenagers at the time, Ricardo Hoey (aged 21 when sentenced last July) of Ardcarrig, Carrigaline and Jordan Deasy (aged 20 when sentenced last July) of nearby Ravensdale, Heron’s Wood.
They knocked Matt to the ground and kicked and punched him as he lay there defenceless. His parents were alerted by a neighbour and rushed to their son’s side. They are now haunted by what they saw that night as their only child lay "lifeless and bleeding on the street".
Matt died 11 days later in hospital having never regained consciousness.
Hoey had no previous convictions. Deasy had 11, including one for assault causing harm, which occurred just 12 months earlier, in December 2021. He received a two-year suspended sentence for this attack on a teenager in Carrigaline.
Both men were acquitted of murder but were found guilty of manslaughter. Ms Justice Siobhan Lankford jailed both for seven years in July, suspending the last three years of their sentence.
Deasy is now due for release from Cork Prison on December 30. He was sentenced to four years on July 31, 2024, and he, like all prisoners who are not serving life sentences, is entitled to a 25% remission of his sentence.
He first entered jail after he was arrested in connection with Matt’s death on January 1, 2023.
Hoey entered prison later, on April 29, 2024, so he is due to be released on March 27, 2027.
Deasy will return to his family home in Carrigaline, the O’Neills assume, not far from where they live.
The thought of meeting him on the street — an unavoidable eventuality in a suburban town — is difficult.
Seeing him “walking around, free as a bird” just three years after killing their only son, would be extremely difficult, Mrs O’Neill said.
The freedom Mr O’Neill once felt — to drive to Castlefreke in West Cork and camp on the side of the road to be up at first light to hit the water on boards and in boats — is gone.
“I couldn’t do that now,” Mr O’Neill said. “I wouldn’t leave Eileen here on her own.”
Mrs O’Neill said: “It [Matt’s death] changes everything. I’m not the same person as I was before, it just changes you.
“I never walk down that road anymore. I never walk past the actual spot where Matt [was attacked].”
Many signs of Matt remain in their Carrigaline home. A wooden clock that he made sits on the mantel piece, no longer keeping time on his life, and a perfectly honed wooden bowl he made stands next to it.
Hundreds of photos of Matt — swimming in the sea and smiling on sunny beaches and camping trips on family holidays — are at painful odds with the awful reality of his death and the new lives the O’Neill’s now find themselves living.
Matt should have turned 32 Sunday. His parents will go to Spike Island to mark his birthday. It was a place that Matt, a watersports enthusiast and skilled seaman with a love of history, old military architecture, and castles, had paddled out to and explored during his too-short life.
Experiencing the criminal justice system first hand has motivated the O’Neill’s to call for reform in sentencing for violent crime, so that if someone repeatedly hits or kicks someone when they are not fighting back — they cannot claim that there was no intent to cause serious harm.
Intent to kill or cause serious harm is what separates a murder from a manslaughter conviction. In their son’s killers' case, the jury decided that there was not proof of such intent beyond a reasonable doubt.
But the O’Neill’s believe that any attack in which someone is repeatedly assaulted when lying defenceless on the ground should automatically prove an intent to cause serious injury or death.
They are also calling for tighter limits on how much of a prison sentence for violent crime can be suspended.
“We realize that the that the law doesn't change quickly and it can't change overnight,” Mrs O’Neill said.
“But we want to contribute something.” The O’Neill’s said they were very grateful for Mr O’Callaghan’s visit to their home.
Direct contact between the electorate and senior politicians was a positive feature of Irish democracy, they said.
Taoiseach Micheál Martin, Mr O’Callaghan, and former finance minister and current EU Commissioner Michael McGrath have now visited the O’Neill’s to hear about Matt and about what changes could be made following his death to make Ireland safer for others.
Mr O’Neill said that a short sentence for violent crime may just make young men tougher.
“You have to live in the prison system and you have to harden up to it.
“So, after three years you'll come out and you'll just be tougher. You'll be harder. You won't have learned a lesson, you won't have thought about it enough.
“But if you give them 10 years, they would have had time to mature and time to think. Whereas you put an 18-year-old in there and he's out at 21, that’s a waste of time.”
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