I gave notice that I would raise a question regarding the delay in bringing to trial certain prisoners. The first case is one of J.J. Mack, and the second is C.F. Ridgeway's case. Mack is charged with murder. There was already a trial for the murder of one named, I think, Bergin, and the prisoner on trial then was, if I remember rightly, found not guilty. The facts of the case have been already made public. The prisoner in question, Mack, was never tried. He was arrested in October, and it was expected and promised he would be tried by the court that opened on the 9th March. His friends have now been informed that his case is not likely to come before the court until June. Inasmuch as the case in question is a matter of a murder which was committed in December, 1925, and that it could not be and probably is not a case where the evidence has to be sought, or the facts in regard to the crime have to be sought, I think there is no good reason for the continued detention and imprisonment of the person who is under charge of murder, and the continued postponement of his trial. The other case is the one of Charles F. Ridgeway, organiser of the Transport General Workers' Union, a very much milder case. The charge is one of conspiracy and intimidation. The case came before the District Court in Dublin on 8th July last year. He was remanded on bail to the Circuit Court commencing on the 14th July. He was brought up at that court, and placed in the dock about 2 o'clock that day, and was informed by the judge that the case would be heard at the November Circuit.
This, of course, is quite a simple case. The court opened on the 17th November, and there was no word of the case during the time the judge sat. He attended on bail, and of course when the court ceased its sitting he remained a free man untried. He was then notified to attend the court sitting on 16th February this year. Towards the latter end of the sitting he was notified that the case was to be tried about two o'clock on a certain day. When the case was called, a consultation took place between the barristers and the judge, during which Mr. Carrigan, the Crown Prosecutor, offered to drop the case on terms. This is a rather extraordinary incident—or at least I hope it is—in the course of a prosecution by the State to have an offer made to withdraw the case if a certain thing entirely unconnected with the case took place, that being that some guarantee be given that the pickets who were acting as strike pickets outside the Metropole would be withdrawn.
This was an offer made to the prisoner and his representative which, after being refused, was mentioned in public in the court. I cannot understand why the Crown Prosecutor or the State Prosecutor, in a case of that kind, should go out of his way to offer to withdraw a prosecution if something was done which was not connected with the case and why the prisoner should be allowed to go free. No undertaking was given in respect of these strike pickets; the prisoner was remanded again and his case will not come up until perhaps June. I do not know when, but at least it will be some time hence. That is to say, the fourth court will have been held in this simple case before the man's trial takes place. He has had to have, in attendance, witnesses each time he was called up, and men cannot be reasonably expected to leave their work to come to the assistance of the prisoner, time after time, in such circumstances. Now the unpleasant feature of this case, that seems to me to demand a certain amount of consideration if not explanation, is that the Crown Solicitor or the State Solicitor is interested in the concern, and his near relatives have been very intimately interested in the concern over which this trouble occurred. The brother of the State Solicitor, once a partner, is a director of the Metropole Company, and the father, who died a year ago, was chairman of the company.
It is not pleasant to think that, acting on the instigation of the State Solicitor, Mr. Corrigan, the brother of the director of the company, at which premises the strike exists, should make a proposition in regard to the strike which, if accepted, would mean the release of the prisoner. Why there should have been a further remand in these circumstances is, in my opinion, an extraordinary proceeding and requires consideration and explanation. The case should not have been mentioned; the offer should not have been made; no proposal for dropping the charge should have been made on conditions of that kind, and if the proposal to drop the charge were made on conditions which might be justified, and if those conditions were not accepted, the charge should have been proceeded with. I say it is unfair to the prisoner in such circumstances. I am assuming, when I talk of the general question of delay in bringing prisoners to trial, that this is not a peculiar case, that it is not an isolated case, and that there are frequent delays in bringing prisoners to trial. I think that the utmost possible effort should be made to avoid continuous remands and continuous imprisonments where men are not on remand, and that prisoners should be tried at the earliest possible moment, even if it may mean an increase in the judiciary. If this is an isolated case, if it does not represent a considerable number of similar delays in bringing prisoners to trial, then I think some explanation is required as to why in this particular case the matter has not been brought to an issue long ago.
