I think it right in the light of events in the House yesterday that I should take the opportunity to make a further statement on this matter. My intention in making this statement is to set the record straight, to set out the facts of this case and to address the specific matters raised in so far as they have relevance to me and my Department. Deputies will have the opportunity to put questions to me when I finish my statement.
I ask Deputies to bear in mind, however, that I am constrained in what I say as the person who was the subject of the request is now before the courts as a result of separate proceedings in this jurisdiction. Equally, Members should be careful about saying anything which would prejudice either that prosecution or the entitlement to a fair trial. I emphasised this when I answered questions in the House on 15 May and the Taoiseach emphasised it again yesterday. It nevertheless bears repeating.
I will set out in some detail the sequence of events in this case for the information of Deputies. Before doing so, I want also to say something about the functions of the different State agencies involved in processing a request for the backing of a warrant submitted under Part III of the Extradition Act, 1965, so that the sequence of events can be better understood.
Warrants are transmitted directly from the requesting police force to the Garda authorities who are responsible for endorsing the warrants for execution in the State in accordance with the provisions of the 1965 Act. Other agencies which have a role under that legislation are the Attorney General's office by virtue, in particular, of the powers conferred on the Attorney by sections 44A and 44B and the Minister for Justice by virtue of the powers conferred by section 44 of the 1965 Act. The Chief State Solicitor's office also has a function by virtue of its role in representing the State in proceedings on foot of the Act.
Warrants and supporting documentation are examined by the Attorney General's office, first, for the purpose of the powers conferred on the Attorney General by sections 44A and 44B of the 1965 Act — as inserted by section 2 of the (Extradition Amendment) Act, 1987 — under which a warrant shall not be endorsed if the Attorney General so directs and, second, to enable him to advise on any other matter of law arising.
My functions in applications of this kind derive from the power vested in me, as Minister for Justice, under section 44 of the 1965 Act to direct that a warrant shall not be endorsed in certain circumstances as, for example, where I am of the opinion that the offence for which return is sought is a political offence, revenue offence or so on. The Office of the Chief State Solicitor also has a function in the matter since that office is responsible for representing the State in extradition proceedings. A similar number of agencies are involved on the British side. Incidentally, the Attorney General and the Minister for Justice get copies of the warrant only. The original goes to and remains with the Garda authorities.
The role of the different agencies involved, and their specific functions, are relevant to some of the questions raised yesterday, as is the fact, which I pointed out in my reply to parliamentary questions on 15 May, that the procedures which needed to be followed in this case were followed at short notice and within a tight timeframe.
The warrant and supporting documents which formed the basis for the application in this case were issued on Friday, 12 April, the day before the application was brought in the District Court. A copy of the warrant and supporting documents was faxed to the Attorney General's Office by the Crown Prosecution Service during the course of that evening as arrangements were being made for the original documents to be brought to Dublin. The warrant and supporting documents in this case, other than the documents required by the Attorney General for the purpose of the functions he is required to exercise under sections 44A and 44B of the Extradition Act, 1965, were subsequently forwarded directly by the requesting police force to the Garda authorities.
The warrant was brought to Dublin by a British detective superintendent and handed over to the Garda at about 9.45 p.m. on Friday night. It was then placed in the custody of a sergeant attached to the unit which processes applications under Part III in Garda headquarters. Copies of the warrant and supporting documents, which would form the basis for the application in court, were made available to my Department by both the Attorney General's Office and, following their receipt, the Garda authorities.
The Garda authorities also forwarded to my Department at that stage, which was at around 10 p.m., a copy of a minute from the Attorney General's Office to the Garda Commissioner indicating that the Attorney General had considered the request for extradition and decided not to give a direction under section 44A of the 1965 Act. That advice also stated that the warrant and supporting documents were otherwise in order for endorsement in accordance with section 43 of the Act. The documentation was accompanied by a covering letter from the Garda authorities which asked whether I intended to intervene under section 44.
A submission was accordingly prepared by one of my officials for my consideration. The file in the matter was brought to me by officials from my Department after midnight. I decided not to intervene in the case and my decision was conveyed to the Garda authorities shortly after midnight on the morning of 13 April. The warrant could only then be endorsed by the Garda authorities. The person concerned was arrested on foot of an endorsed warrant on the morning of 13 April and brought before Dublin District Court No. 4 where it became evident that the warrant before the court was not the original document. The decision was subsequently taken not to proceed with the application and the person was accordingly discharged. The Taoiseach has dealt with the conduct of those proceedings in the replies he gave yesterday to Private Notice Questions on the matter and I have nothing further to add to what he said.
The first indication I received that a problem had arisen in regard to the proceedings before the District Court was when an official of my Department, who was being apprised of developments, telephoned me on the morning of 13 April. At that point it was not clear exactly what had gone wrong. The suggestion was that the warrant was incomplete, was not an original or both. It will be appreciated that there was an element of confusion surrounding the events that had transpired at that time. I asked the official who had telephoned me about these developments to convey to the Garda authorities, through the Secretary of my Department, that I wanted a full report on the matter as soon as possible. This was done.
As far as I can recall, my only public comment on the matter, before answering questions in the House, was in response to questions put to me in the course of the hand over of the Curragh military gaol to my Department on 15 April when I indicated I had sought a report on the matter and also stated that any procedures found not to have worked well would be reviewed.
A parliamentary question subsequently tabled to the Taoiseach by Deputy Harney for answer on 24 April asked about the person or jurisdiction who had responsibility for the documentation in the extradition proceedings concerned. That question was referred to my Department as was entirely proper given that the Garda authorities received the documentation in respect of the application. I made that clear when I answered that question together with a subsequent priority question tabled by Deputy O'Donnell on 15 May. There is nothing untoward, therefore, in the transfer of that question to me.
Arising from those questions the Garda authorities were requested by my Department to submit material in connection with the preparation of the reply, including the report on the circumstances surrounding the difficulties which arose in the case. A response was received in my Department on 9 May. A number of queries were subsequently raised by my Department on foot of that report, but the precise reasons for the difficulties which arose at the court hearing on 13 April still remained unclear. I saw that report on the morning of 15 May while preparing my questions. I accordingly informed the House, in responding to those questions on 15 May that I had been informed by the Garda authorities, inter alia, that:
the reason the extradition proceedings failed in this instance was because the warrant which was produced in court was not the original warrant...
and
... that a review of the steps taken in dealing with this matter has, to date, failed to establish the reason the original warrant was not available to the court.
I went on to say:
It is clear, therefore, that the full facts which resulted in the original warrant not being presented at the court hearing have not been established at this stage. I am not satisfied with the delay in establishing the full facts and I have requested the Garda authorities to conclude their inquiries within a matter of days. I will make the full facts available as soon as they have been determined subject to advice on any legal constraints that may exist.
The matter was pursued by my Department and the final Garda report on the matter was received by my Department on 21 May when a follow up written parliamentary question from Deputy O'Donnell also fell for answer. My response to that question was based on that report. That reply was imparted in the following terms:
I am informed by the Garda authorities that they have now completed their inquiries into the circumstances surrounding the application referred to in the question. It has been established that an original warrant was in fact received by the Garda Síochána on 12 April 1996 but that a copy of the warrant rather than an original was endorsed for execution by the gardaí and subsequently presented to the court. An extensive search has failed to locate the original warrant. The Garda authorities have concluded that the original warrant was mislaid by the Garda and that the only explanation is that the original warrant was destroyed accidentally when copies of the warrant were being made. Because the photocopies of the original documents were of such quality, it was not realised that the original warrant was missing until the court hearing on 13 April 1996.
Responsibility for ensuring that the original documents transmitted by the requesting country seeking the extradition of a person are available to the court rests with the Garda authorities.
I went on to say:
This is the first time an error of this sort has occurred. In general, extradition arrangements between the United Kingdom and Ireland work well. This is evident from the most recent report on the operation of Part III of the Extradition Act, 1965, which was laid before the House in December last. The report, which is in respect of the year 1994, records that 15 persons were extradited in 1994, seven to England and eight to Northern Ireland.
I also indicated that the House could be assured that the necessary lessons would be drawn from the difficulties experienced on this occasion and that the Garda authorities were reviewing the procedures involved in processing the documents required in extradition cases. I also indicated that they would introduce any safeguards needed to ensure that the type of error they made on this occasion will not recur. Deputies will, I hope, accept that this is an entirely proper and appropriate response to something which the Garda authorities, in a public statement issued yesterday, characterised as a mistake caused by human error.
Deputies will also, I hope, accept that the record clearly shows I have acted scrupulously in seeking to present the Dáil with the facts in this case as and when they became available to me. I accept there was a delay in establishing those facts, but there was not a delay in bringing them to the attention of the House, or a wider audience. As I indicated in my reply on Tuesday, I am also satisfied the delay in establishing those facts reflected in part the necessity to liaise with all the agencies involved in the proceedings in both jurisdictions to establish the full facts.
Some Deputies remarked that it must have been obvious long before now that it was premature to blame the British authorities for what happened. I emphasise again that I did not at any stage attribute blame. I decided — quite properly — to wait until I knew the conclusion drawn by the Garda from its investigation before I said anything. I did not receive that information until 21 May and I made a public statement that day, based on that information. It would have been wrong for me, as Minister for Justice, to proceed to make statements attributing responsibility to anybody without the facts.
All the individuals concerned, including the sergeant who had custody of the warrant, have a right to fair procedures. This, as Deputies know, applies to all employees. It would have been wrong for the Minister or anybody else to proceed to attribute blame or cast doubt until all concerned had a full opportunity of explaining themselves. To ensure that the reply received the appropriate publicity, I also issued a statement containing the substance of the reply I gave to Deputy O'Donnell.
There are three further issues which I wish to address. The first of these relates to a reference by the Taoiseach in the Dáil yesterday to a casual conversation in which he recalls me as saying something to the effect that "it may be that the problem is on our side". I made that remark to the Taoiseach in the course of a conversation about other matters before a meeting of the Northern Ireland Cabinet sub-committee on Sunday night last. The record speaks clearly. It was not possible until Tuesday last, when I received the final report from the Garda authorities, to say where responsibility for the difficulties lay. I made no attempt to attribute responsibility for those difficulties in any public comment I made. Equally, I made clear in my reply to questions on 15 May that the Garda review had at that stage failed to establish the reason the original warrant was not available to the court. That, obviously, did not exclude the possibility that responsibility could have — as has now been established — rested with the Garda themselves.
It was not unreasonable, I submit, when some weeks had elapsed with no final outcome to the Garda investigation, that I should begin to wonder whether the fault perhaps lay with the Garda themselves. The fact that I raised the possibility with the Taoiseach could, under no circumstances, justify any public statement by me mentioning such a possibility. The only correct course — the one I followed — was to wait for the facts to be reported to me.
What I did, when the facts of the matter were clarified by the Garda authorities, was to bring them to the attention of the House immediately. That was done by way of my reply to Deputy O'Donnell's written question on the matter. This, I believe, was the correct and reasoned course of action for me to follow. Ministers cannot rely on the luxury of speculation, but need to deal with fact. That is especially the case in circumstances where, as the Taoiseach pointed out yesterday, the Garda review was primarily concerned with procedures within the force and could reflect on the performance of individual members.
The second issue of substance raised in yesterday's proceedings, and for which I have responsibility, is the question of when the British authorities were informed that responsibility for the error lay with the Irish authorities. The answer to this is that they were informed, as was this House, as soon as possible after the Garda report in the matter was received in my Department. In addition, I understand the Garda authorities were in contact with their counterparts during that day, 21 May.
The third point I want to mention is that yesterday evening I discussed this matter with the Garda Commissioner with whom I was attending a meeting of the Anglo-Irish Conference in London. In the course of that conversation I learned that the sergeant who had custody of the warrant in this case had been transferred to other duties. I sought precise details on this matter and learned — about an hour ago — that the transfer took place on the directions of the Commissioner on 18-19 April.
