Deputy Taylor gave me notice of his intention to raise on the Adjournment the subject matter of the petition before the Minister for Justice in regard to the Tallaght Two, Messrs. Grogan and Meleady.
Adjournment Debate. - Petition to Minister for Justice.
I thank you for allowing this matter to be raised this evening. Deputy Roger Garland has asked for a minute or two of my time to make some brief comments and I have agreed.
Is that satisfactory? Agreed.
I believe that the case of the Tallaght Two, Meleady and Grogan, constitutes a miscarriage of justice. I have practised law in this country for upwards of 35 years and in that period I have never said or felt that about any other case. We have a very fine legal system which in 99.9 per cent of cases works extremely well, but there does happen the very rare case where something goes amiss. I believe this is the case.
This issue has been a source of tremendous tragedy for a number of families, not least that of Mr. Eamon Gavin whose car was stolen on that night in 1984. Mr. Gavin was brought to Rathfarnham District Court by the gardai to carry out an identification. He carried out an identification there of two young people, Meleady and Grogan, who were sitting in an anteroom to the court. I believe Mr. Gavin genuinely believes that he made a correct identification and I do not doubt his bona fides for one minute. I know that he and his family have suffered grievously as a result of what happened to him that night and since, but it has to be said also that the families of Meleady and Grogan have suffered tragically and grievously as a result of these incidents.
I always thought it strange and unacceptable that the normal identification procedures were not gone through when these two young men were suspected, as apparently they were, by the Garda. The normal procedure is to conduct an identification parade in the normal manner but for some reason that was never done in this case. That is one of the unsatisfactory things about it.
The other is that three other young men have admitted to being the persons in the car that night. Normally people do not admit to a serious offence of that nature but three other people have admitted to it.
The matter was the subject of an exhaustive examination by RTE, who devoted an entire "Today Tonight" programme to the subject. I passed a video tape of that programme to the Minister and I hope he has had or will have an opportunity of looking at it. I find it strange too that the authorities, when they knew that the programme was about to be put out, went before the President of the High Court, Mr. Justice Hamilton, and sought to obtain an injunction to restrain its being shown. Mr. Justice Hamilton refused the application and the programme was broadcast.
After the court hearing new fingerprint evidence came to light which was consistent with the story given by the three people who admitted to being in the car that night, not Meleady and Grogan. I believe that a miscarriage of justice has taken place here and that while Mr. Gavin suffered as he did — his car was stolen and he was attacked while on it and so on — it was not Meleady and Grogan who perpetrated that act. The Minister no doubt will tell us that they were found guilty by a court on two occasions. That is correct. I would remind the Minister that we have had the example of the Guildford Four recently and that they also were found guilty by a court and courts. There are many similarities between that situation and this one. The authorities in the UK, to their credit, took it upon themselves to recognise that something had gone wrong in the administration of justice in that case and they did something about it. That required a tremendous act of strength on their part and I would beseech the Minister to show the same strength in the case of the Tallaght Two.
What can be done? I know that the Minister does not have the power as the law stands to refer the matter back to the courts. That is a regrettable shortcoming in our legal system. I accept that the Minister does not have that power, but there are other things he can do. First of all, he could release Joseph Meleady who is in prison at this time with some fair period still to run on his sentence. Joseph Meleady has suffered enough, as have his family. I have not time here to go into the history of what happened.
The second thing the Minister could do would be to publish the internal Garda report which was commissioned, conducted and prepared by senior Garda officials. That was completed some two years ago and its findings have never been released or made public. A copy of the report apparently got into the hands of RTE and details of it were broadcast on a programme. One of the findings of the report was that there are certain aspects of this case that warrant further investigation. Why has that report never been published? It should be published now.
The Minister could move a motion in this House to have a full judicial enquiry conducted into this entire unfortunate affair. I call on the Minister to do those three things — to release Joseph Meleady from custody immediately, by reason of the unusual circumstances of this case, to publish the Garda report and to move a motion in this House, which I am sure would have all-party support, to set up a judicial enquiry.
It takes great strength of mind to admit that a mistake has been made and that justice has not been done in a particular case. Many authorities at the highest level would regard that as an issue of weakness but I say the reverse would be true. The British authorities in the case of the Guildford Four showed tremendous couarge and strength in saying that they have a fine judicial system but occasionally it goes wrong and they recognised that fact.
I would beseech the Minister to look at the RTE video on this case and to accept that it has been very well known in Tallaght for years that these two young men are innocent of these crimes. Many people have confirmed this, including student organisations and a number of nuns who have been identified with the case and know the story from children in Tallaght. They have all given it as their firm opinion, from knowledge of Tallaght on the ground, that these are innocent people.
An article in Magill summed this up in August 1988 when Mr. Frank Connolly stated that the story of the Tallaght Two is a tragedy, an unhappy cycle of broken families, heartache and imprisonment. That is the sum of it and I would beseech the Minister to show leniency on this occasion, having regard to the overwhelming doubt about their guilt, and to release them.
Deputy Taylor has put the case very well. He has been working on it a lot longer than I. Since I took up the matter I am equally convinced that there has been a grave miscarriage of justice. It is very easy here for us to talk about the Maguire case, the Guildford Four and the Birmingham Six but when it comes a bit closer to home in this case and in the Nicky Kelly case it is not so easy. I would ask the Minister to recognise that sometimes the law can be wrong. This is clearly a case where this is so and I would ask the Minister to review the case in the most appropriate manner.
While I appreciate the genuineness of the concern which has been expressed about this case, there are some basic points about it to which I, as Minister for Justice, must have particular regard.
In May 1985 both Joseph Meleady and Joseph Grogan were found guilty by a jury at the Central Criminal Court. Subsequently a Paul McDonnell gave evidence to the Court of Criminal Appeal to the effect that he had been in the car on the night of the offence and that Meleady and Grogan had not. On the basis of this evidence a retrial was ordered. At the retrial in November 1985, Paul McDonnell, for whatever reason, was not called by the defence. In any event, the second jury found Meleady and Grogan guilty. McDonnell was tried for perjury. At the first hearing the jury could not agree but at a second hearing a new jury found McDonnell guilty.
When imposing sentence on McDonnell the judge referred to the fact that this had been the fourth time that all the evidence in the Meleady and Grogan case had been brought before the courts and that three juries of ordinary men and women had listened to all the facts and arguments in properly conducted courts of law and had decided as to the guilt of Meleady and Grogan and also in McDonnell's case. He had heard and read many comments in the media regarding this case and asked that it now be put to rest for good.
In May 1988 the then Minister for Justice rejected a petition which had been made in the case of Joseph Grogan. The basis of the petition was to the effect that Grogan had been wrongfully convicted and that the Minister should release him. The Minister declined to deal with an identical petition made in the case of Joseph Meleady as he was unlawfully at large at the time. As the House will be aware, Meleady was only recently returned to custody.
Suggestions that there had been a miscarriage of justice in the case arose at a relatively early stage, received widespread media publicity and were directly in issue in the retrial and the perjury case. As I have already said, two juries have found Meleady and Grogan guilty and the verdict in the perjury case was consistent with that.
I must refer in passing to the contribution of the two Deputies. I know that neither would want to suggest that the police had acted improperly in this case, as distinct from the Guildford case where the police in the UK had been found to have fitted up the Guildford Four. I know that is not suggested by Deputy Taylor; I acknowledge that the Deputy is nodding his agreement with what I am saying.
In all the circumstances I do not consider that a public inquiry into this case could be warranted. I am not satisfied that any new evidence has been adduced in this case which would provide any grounds for reasonably assuming that the verdicts of the three juries were wrong and, accordingly, I do not propose to authorise a release in this case.