An entirely justified response - The Special Criminal Court

SINN FÉIN would have preferred not to have to highlight their ill-judged and self-serving campaign to abolish the Special Criminal Court (SCC) just as tit-for-tat gangland murders claimed two victims in Dublin, once again underlining how essential such an option is in our justice system.

They would have preferred too if they could have chosen a week other than the one Gerry Adams’s “good republican” Thomas ‘Slab’ Murphy is due to be sentenced, after being convicted in the SCC of tax evasion.

The Dublin killings, and more particularly the criminal culture from which they spring, show contempt for any idea of the rule of law, a contempt that includes routinely interfering with our courts to prevent convictions and consequential jail terms. All too often, and all too understandably, key witnesses have succumbed to an induced bout of amnesia and withdrawn statements given to gardaí, statements that if repeated under oath in court would have led to convictions for some of this country’s most dangerous criminals — some of whom enjoy a freedom secured by threatening witnesses.