McDowell and Conroy should do the honourable thing - go now
Almost begrudgingly he admitted that the state owed such an apology offered to the McBrearty family, but immediately turned it into an outrageous attempt at damage limitation, which sought to spread the blame of this scandal to another government.
Hopefully, when the state comes to make a formal apology, it will be couched in a more appropriate form of words.
As minister for justice, he has presented a distorted aspect to the evidence in this case to such an extent that one of the recipients of this specious acknowledgement, Frank McBrearty Jnr, angrily claimed that McDowell was trying to shift the blame.
Labour TD Brendan Howlin, who campaigned for the McBrearty family in the Dáil, said the Department of Justice and the minister could be, at best, accused of negligence and, at worst, complicity in a cover-up.
It is unfortunate that Mr McDowell did not have the wit to make the announcement gracefully about the apology to a family hounded by a section of the state’s police force, instead of turning it into a cheap political gimmick.
Our minister belatedly acknowledges the truth of the McBrearty case, a conversion no doubt inspired by the second Morris report.
Then there is that extraordinary decision of Garda Commissioner Noel Conroy to accept the retirement of two senior gardaí who were lambasted in the Morris Tribunal for their role in the McBrearty scandal.
These men, Supt Joe Shelley and Det Supt John McGinley, were declared by the second Morris report to be partly to blame for the “prejudiced, tendentious and utterly negligent” investigation into Richie Barron’s death.
Mr Justice Morris said: “The tribunal holds back from making a finding that these three officers conspired with each other to (destroy notes and) ensure that the Carty investigation team ... was obstructed in its task.
“The tribunal regards the destruction of this material as scandalous.”
The commissioner, apparently, saw no problem in letting them walk away totally unscathed for their part in the biggest scandal ever to cloud the gardaí.
Not only that... they also walked away in the comforting knowledge that they will receive a lump sum of about €110,000 and an annual pension of about €37,000.
To listen to McDowell one would almost think that two men did the country a favour by resigning.
He said: “By doing so they have spared us the process of disciplinary inquiry.”
How gracious of them.
The McBrearty family almost summed it up in one word when they described as hypocrisy what happed, or is happening, in the aftermath of the crookedness of the gardaí involved in the Donegal affair. It’s not just hypocrisy, but an attempt to airbrush the most serious co-ordinated attempt by gardaí to undermine the law of this country, and frame somebody for a murder that never happened.
Michael McDowell should resign, and he should take with him Garda Commissioner Noel Conroy.
Despite whatever financial settlement the minister is now prepared to make with the family, I hope they remain determined to go ahead with their High Court case so that they can put their side of the story - even if Michael McDowell was determined that they would not.
Let’s face it, the state tried to frame Frank McBrearty for the murder of Richie Barron, who was killed in a hit-and-run, and then adamantly refused to pay his legal costs when the Morris Tribunal was established to investigate the circumstances.
It was acknowledged that McBrearty’s evidence, and that of his family, was crucial to the tribunal, and while they were granted the right to be legally represented, they would have to pay their own legal bills.
What the McBrearty family was put through by the gardaí was a horrendous nightmare which was tolerated and condoned by the state.
Frank McBrearty Jnr was an innocent man whom the gardaí tried to frame for a murder that never happened.
SINCE the publication of the second Morris report, Mr Conroy has sought to distance himself from a submission made on his behalf defending the investigation into the death of Richie Barron.
Remember, Mr Justice Morris said the investigation into Mr Barron’s death was characterised by gross incompetence and criminal negligence.
On the other hand, our Garda commissioner, in the submission, had considered that the investigation met the standards of best policing practice.
The director of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, Aisling Reidy, has called into question both the commissioner’s judgement and his position.
“It is incredulous that an investigation described as ‘prejudiced, tendentious and utterly negligent in the highest degree’ has been defended by Commissioner Conroy as ‘run in an efficient and thorough manner.’
“Whether the commissioner was defending the Garda irrespective of the incompetence of the inquiry, or he sincerely believed the inquiry to be competent, (the submission), calls into question his judgement and ultimately his position,” she said.
Pat Rabbitte, the Labour party leader, said in the Dáil at the start of this month: “I have great respect for the Garda Commissioner, Noel Conroy, but I cannot understand why he said, as recently as three weeks ago, that the inquiry into the death of Mr Richie Barron was thorough and efficient. The House should be profoundly disturbed by remarks of that nature.”
It’s not just the Dáil that should be “profoundly disturbed,” but the entire country because if that’s the commissioner’s idea of what the standards of best policing practice are, then he’s in the wrong job.
Let’s face it, here was a man who was being framed for murder - by the police, for God’s sake!
And a murder that never happened.
I mean, we are not talking about searching a house with a defective warrant, or letting a buddy off a drink driving charge.
At stake was a person’s liberty because of the pursuit of a trumped-up charge of murder.
The McBrearty family was hounded and dragged before the courts on equally trumped-up charges - more than 200 of them, which were subsequently dropped.
That in itself should have caused a few sirens and blue flashing lights up in the Phoenix Park, or was that an example of best policing practice, too?
And was the Carty inquiry, which was an internal Garda inquiry into the criminal activities of the gardaí in Donegal, an example of those standards as well?
Mr Justice Morris didn’t think so, and neither does anybody else.
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