Murky history of political skulduggery is behind the collapse of garda morale

SOME weeks ago I wrote about a persistent rumour that the gardaí involved in the raid on Judge Brian Curtin's home had actually checked with the relevant authorities beforehand and were told to go ahead with a flawed search warrant.

If this was the case, surely the Minister for Justice should have clarified the situation as the Garda Síochána is already in enough trouble without being further discredited by being blamed unfairly in this instance.

This is not just about the way the Government has played sordid politics with the Curtin case; it is also the way in which the gardaí as a whole seem to be left open to ridicule in order to protect somebody in higher authority.

The gardaí were blamed for the foul-up over the search warrant and more than a few people jumped to what I believe was a totally unfounded conclusion that there was some kind of conspiracy on the part of the gardaí to undermine the case against the judge.

An Garda Síochána has a proud history extending over more than 80 years, but the force is now demoralised and we have been witnessing the unprecedented growth of criminal gangs. The gardaí have been undermined by politics and the country is suffering as a result. As Minister for Justice, Michael McDowell inherited a mess that has been developing for over 30 years.

At the end of July, the Irish Examiner published a letter from the son of the late Garda Richard Fallon, who was the first garda murdered in the course of the recent troubles. He was killed in Dublin on April 3, 1970, as he chased some bank robbers. His son, Finian Fallon, has been waging a lonely campaign for years on behalf of his family demanding answers. He requested to meet the Minister for Justice to discuss his father's case in July 2002, but two years later he still had received only a holding letter acknowledging the receipt of his request.

"My father received a gold Scott Medal for bravery, awarded posthumously for the first time," Finian wrote in his letter to the Irish Examiner.

"His sacrifice and its aftermath still raise questions as to the actions of the Government, at the time, and today.

"Yet no one with the power to address this issue will listen to our call for the truth."

Our Government has never been slow to call for judicial inquiries into killings in Northern Ireland, whenever there was any suggestion of police or political collusion. But they have ignored the murder of a garda within our own jurisdiction.

Finian Fallon is particularly disillusioned, because evidence of political skulduggery has been ignored.

One of those involved in the fatal robbery later told a member of the Fallon family that "one of the gang members had been smuggled out of the Republic in a State car", Finian wrote in July.

That story has been doing the rounds for over 30 years.

Gerry L'Estrange TD told the Dáil on November 4, 1971, that "one of the men who murdered Garda Fallon was brought down to Greenore ferryboat [in Co Louth] in a State car."

He did not name the minister responsible in the Dáil, but gardaí were convinced that it was Neil Blaney, and they had good reasons for their suspicions.

This is all part of a disease that has been eating at the body politic like a cancer. Files relating to the Fallon case should have been opened to the public under the 30-year rule, but - surprise, surprise - they seem to have been mislaid, like so many other relevant files of the period.

"We have been accusing the Irish Government of covering up the murder of our father for many years," Finian Fallon wrote in July.

"It is yet again extremely disappointing that the authorities have ignored our accusations that investigators into my father's death were told to 'take it easy', and also that security and intelligence files relating to my father's case have gone missing."

Barely a month after the killing, the arms crisis erupted and people on both sides of the Fianna Fáil divide shamelessly played politics with the Fallon murder.

On the day that the Arms Crisis erupted, for instance, the Taoiseach Jack Lynch used the murder in a grubby effort to cover up the fact that he had demanded the resignation of Minister for Justice Micheál Ó Moráin. The Taoiseach was trying to pretend instead that Ó Moráin, a chronic alcoholic, had stepped down voluntarily on health grounds.

"I wish to state that Deputy Ó Moráin's condition is not unassociated with the shock he suffered as a result of the killing of Garda Fallon," Lynch told the Dáil. "I wish to repudiate emphatically that no attempt was made by this Government, by any member of it or by any person associated with it to ease up in any way on the hunt for the perpetrators of this foul deed."

Neil Blaney, on the other hand, suggested the Government was wasting resources by keeping Government ministers under surveillance instead of concentrating on catching the murderers.

"In view of all the developments we have heard about in recent months," he told the Dáil on July 29, 1970, "I would query how active these forces have been in apprehending the murderers of Dick Fallon. The murder was witnessed by some members of these forces and yet the people involved in the murder have escaped the net."

His audacity apparently knew no bounds.

The gardaí knew that the suspect was driven to Donegal in Blaney's State car, because, of course, the driver was a garda, now dead. Des O'Malley - who was Minister for Justice when Blaney made his accusation - told the Dáil in July 2001 that "there is some reason to believe Garda Fallon may have been murdered in April 1970 with a weapon which had been part of earlier illegal arms shipments into this State. There is also reason to suppose that some senior gardaí suspected that a prominent politician was fully aware of this earlier importation and had turned a blind eye to it".

In short, a Government minister and elements of the gardaí have been accused of being accessories to the murder of a garda, and a former Minister for Justice has publicly stated that there is reason to believe a prominent politician was involved, but the current Minister for Justice couldn't even be bothered to meet a member of the murdered Garda's family who claims to know of evidence that investigating gardaí were told to go "easy" on their enquiries.

Is it any wonder the gardaí became demoralised when the murder of a member of the force was used as a political football? Should anyone really be surprised at what subsequently happened within the force in Donegal?