A frightening vista has opened up and McDowell should resign now

JUSTICE Minister Michael McDowell should have the good grace to resign. If he does not, he should be sacked immediately for plunging the countryinto the worst crisis it has ever faced in the area of criminal law.

His ignorance led to a Supreme Court decision which effectively opened the prison door for convicted child rapists to walk free.

Ignorance of the law is no defence, especially in a Minister for Justice, and more especially when the safety of young children is involved.

The release of a rapist — and five more may follow — sparked every parent’s worst nightmare and the reliving of that nightmare by Mr A’s victim and her family.

Any girl under 15 was — is — in a legal vacuum whereby any pervert can target her with impunity. What’s more, those already convicted of the offence can get out of jail.

There is no excuse for what happened in the High Court this week when 41-year-old Mr A walked free after being convicted of having sex with a 12-year-old, having plied her with drink.

At the end of the day it’s not the court’s fault there is such public outrage that a sex pervert had the door of his prison cell opened for him.

It is more than just “strange” that Justice Minister McDowell did not know that the Supreme Court decision which allowed this to happen was in train.

More than strange, it was incompetent that the minister, the Attorney General (AG) and the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) were ignorant of what was happening in the Supreme Court.

It was unforgivable, unbelievable and intolerable.

Recently in Britain, Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary — equivalent to McDowell’s position — was sacked when he allowed immigrants who were convicted killers, rapists and child abusers out of jail without being considered for deportation, and hundreds went missing.

He wanted to remain on in his post to sort out the mess he was responsible for, but he was sacked anyway.

So, too, should Michael McDowell.

It is flabbergasting that the Minister for Justice admitted he had no knowledge of the Supreme Court decision until the very day they issued it.

Ten months ago that court indicated that it would hear arguments about whether or not a section of the Criminal Amendment Act 1935 was at odds with the constitution.

Under that section, it was an automatic crime to have sex with a girl under 15 years of age, but there was a strong possibility that law was unconstitutional.

Now we know it was.

Apart from the Supreme Court intending to deal with the issue, the matter was reported in the media. In October 2005, the Law Society Gazette carried a lengthy article on the case, intimating that it could cause substantial changes in Irish law, and it was proved correct. Even further back, in 1990, the Law Reform Commission saw it coming and said so. But successive governments chose to ignore that warning. The job of the commission, an independent statutory body, is to keep legislation under review. Their view back then was that the absence of a defence was a serious omission from the law, which practically anticipated the decision of the Supreme Court.

Mr McDowell has since tried to deflect ultimate responsibility by dragging in the AG and the DPP — the latter, according to the minister, didn’t seem to be aware.

The minister then informed us that the DPP continued to lay charges under that particular section of the 1935 Act until last week. He was, like the minister — and in the minister’s words — unaware of any “impending danger” in relation to that section. In what can only be described as a lame effort at damage limitation, Mr McDowell asked: “If the DPP thought he was on a loser, why did he keep charging people with the offence?”

The minister said he also believed that the AG — the legal adviser to the Government — was not personally aware, but he admitted that officials in that office might have been aware because they had to be notified that a case was pending.

The Minister for Justice was definitely unaware that the Supreme Court was about to drop one of the most reverberating legal judgements in the history of the state.

So, the three key legal experts that the public depend on had not a clue between them that one of the most frightening vistas was about to open up.

And Taoiseach Bertie Ahern believed that convicted people would not walk free. He was equally clueless.

Just ask Mr A, or the other five child rapists who can simply apply to get back on the streets.

THOSE words will come back to haunt Bertie Ahern, just as Michael McDowell should be haunted by his declaration that there was no gaping void in the law caused by last week’s decision.

The entire Government floundered. Even when the Supreme Court announced its judgement, the implications did not sink in.

Yet the Government DID know, but did absolutely nothing about it. Tánaiste Mary Harney admitted to the Dáil that the Government had been informed of the case by the Chief State Solicitor’s Office as far back as November 2002.

An “information deficit” had then followed... that was how she asininely described it, like a yuppy trainee accountant engaged in some sort of imaginative sheet balancing — and doing it hamfistedly.

The Supreme Court may, or may not, rescue the Government from its own slovenly handling of the fall-out when it hears today an application by the State to appeal the High Court decision to release Mr A.

Too often the Government blames the courts over lenient sentences or bail, but today it throws itself at the mercy of one of those institutions.

I hope they win not for the sake of their collective political neck, but so that justice can be restored and a frightening legal loophole closed.

This Government blames everybody and everything for its own mistakes with an arrogance that is breathtaking. We have had a litany of Government cock-ups, from e-voting to PPARs, for which absolutely nobody was held responsible.

The health service is a shambles, and the A&E units are officially designated a national emergency — yet nobody accepts responsibility for that shambles.

Instead, the Government rewards HSE chief executive Prof. Brendan Drumm with a bonus of €32,000 on top of his €400,000 salary.

One would imagine he had already transformed it into a model health service.

He is in the job for about nine months. As Patients Together spokeswoman Janette Byrne said, he has made no significant achievement in improving the daily workings of the health service.

He has been paid a huge salary to do the job and there should be no question of any kind of bonus.

But it is symptomatic of the way this Government has its priorities.

Nobody takes responsibility, a culture that has to stop now.

And that’s why Michael McDowell must go.