Dublin Report Misguided no-tolerance policy caused Abbeylara ‘siege’

By John Kelly

A former officer in what was commonly called the "murder squad" recently remarked that Irish civil liberties are being eroded by legislative changes. It was not the sort of comment one would normally expect from a man of his background.

Not alone was he critical of much of the new restrictive legislation that has been pushed through here in recent years, but he also said he believes that too many of the new police recruits seem to watch too much TV and try to reenact what they see in the movies.

Any member of the Irish public who attends any district court would have to agree. Prosecutions are often taken for the most trivial reasons, particularly as the result of the catch-all Public Order Act, originally introduced as a vital plank in the so-called zero-tolerance policy pushed by Fianna Fail.

On the face of it, the policy that owes much to New York’s Finest, advocated by former Deputy Commissioner, John Timoney, a Dubliner, who advised the Irish government, seems fine.

But it was hardly intended as a means to prosecute young people for offenses as trivial as throwing a cigarette butt on the road. Nor was it intended to bestow a criminal record on some unfortunate victim arrested for drinking in a public place.

Yet that is what is happening in Irish courts. Many young Irish people are now becoming alienated from the police as the result of such prosecutions.

However, what is much more serious is the seeming unaccountability of the Irish police as witnessed in the recent attempt by a Dail Committee to carry out a public investigation into the shooting of the mentally disturbed John Carthy in Abbeylara, Co. Longford, last year.

Who polices the police is still a critical question in any genuine democracy.

All of the evidence that has emerged at the Bloody Sunday inquiry in Derry supports what most suspected from the beginning: It was nothing less than the organized, systematic killing of unarmed civilians. Call it murder, for it was nothing else.

Yet the British Army, backed by the full authority of Her Majesty’s government, perpetrated it. Subsequently, it was covered up by the scandalous Widgery Inquiry.

Similarly, the European Court has now concluded that the same army, supported by the RUC, carried out a shoot-to-kill policy in Northern Ireland. Again, that comes as no surprise to no one.

In some ways, the shooting of young John Carthy by the Emergency Response Unit of the Garda Siochana was even worse.

The young man had a history of depression. He had been arrested and charged by police for a relatively minor offense. He protested his innocence and became alienated from the gardai as a result.

His mind apparently snapped just before he and his aged mother were to move into a new bungalow near the cottage in which they lived. There was nothing irretrievable about the situation. Skilled psychiatric aid, even the help of friends and family, would probably have solved the crisis.

But when the local police were informed that he refused to leave the cottage and that he was armed with a loaded shotgun, what became known as the "Siege of Abbeylara" began.

The heavily armed ERU, trained to deal with armed criminals in hostage situations, was called in.

Carthy entered battle, firing several shots at gardai, some unarmed, who had surrounded the cottage. They attempted to negotiate but refused to send him cigarettes and failed to contact a lawyer he named.

He wanted to meet the lawyer because he was convinced he would be jailed for life as the result of the siege. Finally, he emerged from the cottage, carrying his loaded shotgun and walked directly toward the police.

The ERU opened fire, hitting him several times. Gardai claimed, in the official police version of the killing, that he continued to walk, posing a threat even after he had been hit.

Yet in his report, the state’s chief pathologist, John Harbison, suggested that the final shot, which killed him, was fired as he was falling to the ground. He came to this conclusion after examining the trajectory of the bullet.

As the result of public disquiet and the grief of the dead man’s family, the Garda commissioner took the unusual step of calling for the aid of U.S. FBI officers in carrying out what he claimed to be an "independent" investigation.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the conclusion was that the shooting was justified in the circumstances that prevailed and the danger to the gardai.

Many prominent politicians, including the former taoiseach, Albert Reynolds, remained unconvinced. The Carthy family continued to press for a public inquiry. Finally, the Dail decided that its committee on Justice, Equality and Women’s Rights should investigate all of the circumstances.

Almost immediately, the police lawyer objected to the procedures that the committee wished to implement. In particular, members of the ERU complained that their careers and their effectiveness as police officers could be jeopardized if they were publicly identified.

This seems unlikely. The ERU is not an undercover unit. It operates in dangerous confrontations, which is why the members are armed. They do not attempt to hide their identities. Many were pictured as they squatted behind walls during the Abbeylara siege.

However, the committee decided that it should suspend its inquiry for four weeks as the result of the legal challenges to its competence and procedures.

Even John O’Donoghue, the minister for justice, lodged a protest on behalf of the gardai.

The unfortunate and probably unnecessary death of the young John Carthy could yet provoke something of a crisis between politicians and police. At the heart of it all will be the question, who polices the police?

If the government of the day is not directly responsible, then who or what is?

It will also certainly raise the the issue of the absence of an independent body to survey the activities of gardai. At present, the only recourse for Irish citizens who may wish to complain about garda actions is a complaints commission run by the gardai themselves.

Not surprisingly, it is has rarely found in favor of complainants.

An independent public commission must be established to test complaints about garda actions. Otherwise, the erosion of civil liberties will become established. That would be the most serious outcome for all.