Apr 06
Once upon a time, I wrote a screenplay, based on the Morris tribunal. It’s in development, which is a polite way of saying it’s sitting on a shelf in a producer’s office somewhere, gathering dust because the producer is busy gathering funds for other projects. This is one scene from that screenlay. It’s impossible to …
Nov 12
There are days when the workings of the State confound me. No, this isn’t about NAMA, now passed by both houses of the Oireachtas, and – barring referral to the Supreme Court – set to become law within a week, as soon as President McAleese signs it. Instead, it’s about a case resolved on the …
Oct 08
Garda John O’Toole needed a favour. Phone records necessary for a criminal inquiry were trapped in bureaucratic hell, and the investigation was going nowhere. He phoned his brother-in-law in Garda HQ, asking if he could speed things up. The chief had signed the authorisations, but nothing was happening at the phone company. DI Nyham said …
Aug 28
Mention earlier this week of the Morris tribunal reminds me of one of the minor riddles that inquiry left in my mind. In June 2005, the tribunal apparently learned that it’s website had been ‘hacked’. The Sunday Times later reported that ‘rogue computer software known as spyware was attached to the server used to “air” …
Aug 26
Something rather odd happened to the Morris tribunal recently. It disappeared. Blogger Gavin Sheridan noticed something awry when he went looking for a transcrpt on the site about eight weeks ago. He prepared an Freedom Of Information request to find out what was going on. ‘If we are to learn any lessons from the Morris …
Jul 29
I haven’t written too much about the new Criminal Justice Act, signed into law by the president last week. In case you missed it too, hearsay has been upgraded to evidence, as has the opinion of a Garda. Politicians dislike speaking out against attacks on civil rights in this country. Too many people are afraid …
Jun 30
The benefit of the doubt (or if you prefer, the presumption of innocence) is one of the longest established principles in the common law. At it’s most blunt, the principle is expressed in Blackstone’s formulation: “better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer”. Populist cheerleaders for tough policing often focus on those …
Apr 17
Justice minister Dermot Ahern says membership of a criminal gang will become a scheduled offence, to be tried in the Special Criminal Court. In the last chapter of Chaos and Conspiracy, when I considered the lessons to be learned from what happened in Donegal a decade ago, I wrote this: “The Gardaí need effective oversight …
Apr 14
Gerard Cunningham, who covered every day of evidence at the Morris tribunal, has written a devastating new book. Chaos and Conspiracy is at its most powerful when it details the awful consequences of the wrongful arrests of twelve innocent people. Take for example, Roisin McConnell: accused of having an affair, called a slut and a …
Feb 13
The Comptroller and Auditor General’s report into the cost of public tribunals makes interesting reading. The CAG calculates that the three largest tribunals, Moriarty, Mahon and Morris, will end up costing taxpayers over €400 million. The Morris tribunal, which has cost €46 million to date, will come in at around €80 million in total, the …