February 17, 2011
By Staff Reporter
Byrne’s case is due to come up for a “mention” hearing this week, the Irish legal equivalent of a status hearing in the U.S.
“The delay is not by design. It just happened that when Joseph was returned to Ireland that there were no provisions made for him. That’s standard practice,” Tom Bynre said of his son’s extradition to Ireland in February, 2008.
“He was taken before a District Court and released on bail to appear before the Circuit Court. The Circuit Court sits in Dundalk in four different sessions during the year, with each session lasting about six weeks.
“There were approximately one hundred cases due before the court and Joseph entered into the system at one hundred and one. So with the court working through thirty plus cases per session, it has taken almost a year to have him in the top thirty,” Byrne, who is a retired Garda, added.
“The next session starts on April 21 and while we felt certain that he would be heard during this session, we have been reliably informed that the case will be further adjourned.
“In fact, this actually means we still are not certain of being heard at the following sessions. Because of the great backlog of cases, the court is giving preference to cases involving death and sexual cases.
“These leap frog all others. We are hoping that the controversy generated by publicity in the U.S. will force a withdrawal of the charges, or an early hearing,” said Byrne.
Joe Byrne, a legal resident in the U.S who is married to an American citizen and is the father of a citizen daughter, was extradited to Ireland last year on charges dating to a robbery case that first surfaced in 1997 only to vanish off the Irish legal radar for a decade.