Mick Clifford: The cynical use of a tragedy to play politics

Politicians are doing a great disservice to a bereaved family

Lucia O’Farrell with a photo of her son Shane. She has campaigned for a public inquiry into her son’s death. File photo: Eamonn Farrell/RollingNews.ie

This is a column I really didn’t want to write, but in light of the depths of cynicism plumbed by some politicians it couldn’t be ignored. What has happened to Jim O’Callaghan? Just last year the current Minister for Justice threw grave doubts on a report into an issue of vital public interest. Today, he has a very different take on it.

The minister is just one of a whole raft of politicians who have, in my opinion, given false impression to a bereaved family that they support the family’s quest for a public inquiry. O’Callaghan has been found out because he now is in government. All the others have the luxury of carrying on regardless.

The case is that of Shane O’Farrell, who died when he was struck by a car while out cycling near his home in Carrickmacross on August 2, 2011. He was 23, had just completed final year law exams, and was full of life. The driver, Lithuanian man Zigimantas Gridziuska, failed to stop. He had a record of drug abuse and petty theft and had repeatedly broken bail conditions. On the day of the tragedy he should have been in prison.

He was subsequently charged with dangerous driving causing death but the trial judge directed the jury to acquit. Deeply unhappy with the outcome, Shane’s mother, Lucia O’Farrell, set about researching in depth Gridziuska’s history of engagement with the gardaí and the courts. She found a number of inconsistencies and failures despite frequently facing resistance.

What she uncovered was embarrassing for the functioning of the criminal justice system

 The case has been examined by an Independent Review Mechanism and GSOC but in 2019 the government set up a scoping exercise to determine whether a full public inquiry was warranted. Retired Judge Gerard Haughton reported on the scoping exercise in 2023 and it was published last year. The 415 page report recommended that a public inquiry wasn’t warranted.

Shane O'Farrell was 23 when he was killed in the hit-and-run.

Lucia O’Farrell and her family were very dissatisfied with it and that is entirely understandable. For the greater part, Houghton attributed much of the failings of State agencies to downright sloppiness and poor practice. The family have picked holes with aspects of it. In particular, it would appear that they continue to believe Gridziuska was a garda informant and that was why he was at large when he should have been in prison.

The justice minister of the day, Helen McEntee, refused to accede to the family’s request for a public inquiry. Were she to do so it would be an admission that Haughton had erred badly. There is no evidence of that. Others, however, saw it differently.

Here’s Jim O’Callaghan, then a backbench TD, last October when he spoke on the report in the Dáil. He said the report had made findings of fact about the absence of a light on Shane’s bicycle on the evening in question. “I think it is very dangerous for there to be findings of fact in a report when those findings of fact are not based on evidence that has been given before the person who is conducting the inquiry,” O’Callaghan said.

In reality, Haughton’s detail about Shane’s lighting and clothing on the night in question was taken directly from the criminal trial and was laid out to explain, in part, why the trial judge had directed the jury to acquit. If O’Callahan was genuine in describing this as “dangerous” then surely he has a duty to tear up Haughton's report now and open a public inquiry. He hasn’t done that.

On the same day in the Seanad, Michael McDowell declared that if another senator tables a motion for a “proper inquiry” then he “will be the first to support it”. A proper inquiry? McDowell, a senior counsel, is a former AG and a former Minster for Justice. There is absolutely no way if he was minister today he would act any differently to O’Callaghan or McEntee.

Fine Gael MEP Regina Doherty appealed to O’Callaghan last week to open a public inquiry, to “do what is right for Shane, and deliver for the O’Farrell family; something that has been deprived of them for far too long.” Would Doherty, a former cabinet member, call for a public inquiry if she were in government today? Not on your life.

Distortion of truth

The same applies to Matt Carthy, Justice spokesperson for Sinn Féin. Last Saturday on RTÉ, Carthy said that the Haughton report “shamefully, in my view, criticised Shane for his own death”. This is a complete distortion of what was in the report, which, as pointed out above, referenced the issue of lighting on the bike in the criminal trial.

The shame, if there is any, should be on Carthy for distorting Haughton’s report in pursuit of cheap political points.

Were Carthy the Minister for Justice in the morning it is impossible to envisage him initiating a public inquiry, particularly as Sinn Féin would be careful not to appear cavalier with laws and conventions on their first shot at government. A number of other politicians have come out with similar comments since Haughton was published but it’s difficult at this remove to say whether they actually read the report or are just parroting what they believe sounds the right thing to say.

Lucia O’Farrell is a person of unimpeachable character. She has shown resilience and integrity in pursuing the case that robbed her son of his life. Meeting her is a heart-rending experience, such is the raw emotion she exudes at her loss and her belief that the only thing that can bring closure is a public inquiry.

 She has also done the State a service, highlighting flaws in the justice system and shortcoming in relation to the law on dangerous driving.

But should a public inquiry be initiated primarily because of the outstanding character, and deep pain, of the person pursuing it? That is certainly not what is defined as a matter of urgent public interest.

Reports such as Haughton's are not infallible. In the past, shortcomings, some incidental, others central, have emerged from reports like this. 

Yet nobody, no politician or media investigation, has highlighted any severe fault with the report which would render redundant its primary recommendation. Should that change, then all bets are off

As things stand, a whole slew of politicians are calling for an inquiry in the knowledge that if they were the decision maker they would do no different than the current incumbent, O’Callaghan. Some of them can claim ignorance of the detail as if that’s a valid excuse. Those who are familiar with the case can’t but be engaging on the issue with deep cynicism. I write this reluctantly, aware that it brings Mrs O’Farrell and her family little comfort and may well add to pain. But sometimes a narrative being propagated in the political arena is so corrupted it amounts to playing politics with a tragedy and doing a disservice to a bereaved family.