I thank the sub-committee for inviting me and Mr. Séan Aylward to comment and answer questions in relation to the Barron inquiry into the murder of Seamus Ludlow in 1976. I trust the sub-committee has received our written submission on a number of key issues. In my brief oral submission I will expand further on these and other issues as they relate to the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform. Before going further, I express my deepest sympathy to the members of the family of Seamus Ludlow who are present today and to others who are not. I know they have campaigned for many years to learn more about the tragic murder, those responsible and the State's response. I must also make the preliminary point that while the Secretary General and I are responsible for current matters affecting the Department, we are not necessarily familiar in every detail with the practices and policies in place almost three decades ago.
The Barron inquiry has done a great service in forensically examining the various phases of the Garda investigation into the murder of Seamus Ludlow and identifying where matters were handled well and not so well. Whatever the criticisms made, we should acknowledge that the inquiry has found that the contemporaneous Garda investigation in 1976 was conducted thoroughly, professionally and comprehensively.
The key issue, as recognised by all, relates to the non-pursuit by the Garda Síochána of the critical information naming four suspects to the murder received at a later point from the then RUC. I know there is a doubt as to why this information was not received earlier. The Barron inquiry believes the only credible explanation for the non-pursuit of the suspects is that a direction was given that led the investigating officer to abandon plans to have the suspects interviewed outside the jurisdiction. I am afraid I am not in a position to adjudicate between the competing claims made by former members of the Garda Síochána on who did or did not give such a direction. I simply do not know how the decision not to interview the suspects was reached or what precisely formed the Garda's thinking in this case. There is nothing in the files of the Department that relates to the identification of the four suspects in 1979.
We are examining the events of 30 years ago through the prism of all that has occurred since, including North-South co-operation and political progress. Given that a high level of co-operation between the Garda and the Police Service of Northern Ireland is now the norm, as evidenced by their co-operation in the investigations into the Northern Bank raid and other organised crime, it is hard to appreciate how different things were — regrettably — in the 1970s. It may be trite to say they were different times, but that is the reality. Our attitudes to Northern Ireland and what constituted appropriate contact between the respective forces of law and order in the two jurisdictions were informed by different considerations of history. I cannot put it more forcefully than this. The sub-committee should bear in mind that the issue of extradition, for example, was considered extensively in 1973-74 under the Sunningdale Agreement. A bilateral commission was established when no agreement was reached in this fundamental area of law enforcement. The Criminal Law (Jurisdiction) Act 1976 which was passed as a result of the commission's activities did not provide for extradition but for mutual jurisdiction on either side of the Border for serious offences, including murder. When one considers the current circumstances, it is clear that relations between the two sovereign states on this island were very different in the 1970s.
I note that the Barron report posits that the decision not to pursue the information offered by the RUC was made by the then Garda Commissioner, Mr. Laurence Wren. The report goes on to speculate that before making the decision, it is likely that Mr. Wren would have discussed the matter with other senior gardaí and, possibly, senior officials from the then Department of Justice. The members of the sub-committee are aware from the report that the only surviving member of the Department's security division which would have dealt with such matters at the time has no recollection of the case. As I said, there are no records in the Department from 1979 which deal with this topic. I will return to this aspect of the matter.
At this remove, there is no way that the Department or I can definitively state whether the Department was consulted by Mr. Wren or any other garda on the issue of the questioning of the suspects. I am sure Mr. Wren will want me to note that he strongly denies the findings of the report in this regard as they relate to him in their entirety. Having said that, I speculate that no such communication took place. My belief which can only be an educated surmise is based on two main reasons. First, there is no reason to believe the Department was notified in 1979 that four suspects had been identified by the RUC. There is certainly no documentary evidence that this was the case. Second, it is my understanding of the general relationship between the Department and the Garda that the investigation of criminal offences was a matter for the force within the legal and operational frameworks of the day. Although the Minister and the Department would have been briefed in general terms on the progress of major Garda investigations, they would have had no role in directing individual investigations.
I would like to return to the issue of the documentation held by the Department. I am pleased to note that the Barron inquiry confirmed that it received the full co-operation of the Department. The Barron report refers to three files provided by the Department, one of which dates from 1976 and contains the original Garda investigation report. The other two which date from the late 1990s correspond to the time of the newspaper publication of information about the suspects. The Department has no file or papers dating from 1979, or the intervening years, corresponding to the time when the RUC forwarded information about the four named suspects to the Garda. On this matter the Barron report states it is hard to understand why a file was not opened in 1979, assuming that "this information was indeed passed to the Department". That comment goes to the nub of the matter. If papers had been forwarded, I can only surmise a new file would have been opened or, more likely, that the papers would have been placed in the existing Department file, opened in 1976, containing the original Garda report. Since neither of these actions took place, it seems the most reasonable conclusion in the circumstances is precisely that the information the Garda obtained from the RUC was not forwarded to the Department.
Some assume — I believe they are wrong — that everything the Garda knows was and is forwarded to the Department. That was not the case at the time in question, nor is it the case now. Many of the intricacies of Garda investigations never go beyond the Garda organisation. This reflects the very different organisational roles of the Garda Síochána and the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, as it is now called. Beyond these simple observations on the issue, I am afraid I simply cannot elaborate any further. It comes down to the obvious question of why, if there was such communication, there would not be a file. This raises the question of whether there was such communication.
Irrespective of what constituted the norm in 1976 regarding the interviewing of suspects by the Garda Síochána outside the jurisdiction, participation in the extra-jurisdictional interviewing of suspects is now an accepted part of police practice by means of formal mutual assistance requests. This typically can involve gardaí being present when suspects are being questioned by the host police service. In the 1970s and up to the 1990s mutual assistance arrangements did not have a statutory basis. Co-operation between police forces did take place in the provision of assistance on a case-by-case basis but my Department did not have any formal role in such co-operation. The first item of mutual assistance legislation was enacted in 1994 and that law enabled Ireland to provide mutual legal assistance for and seek such assistance from other countries. This is contained in Part 7 of the 1994 Act and regulations made under that Part, namely, the criminal justice regulations of 1996. Pursuant to the 1994 Act, requests for assistance to or from Britain and Northern Ireland are communicated through the so-called central authorities. In Ireland's case, this is the mutual assistance and extradition division of the Department.
On more recent developments, the Criminal Justice (Mutual Assistance) Bill 2005 has been published. When it is passed and implemented, it will give effect to three mutual assistance instruments, the first of which is the Convention on Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters of the Member States of the European Union, signed in 2000. The second is the protocol to that convention, dated 2001, while the third is the second additional protocol to the convention, also dated 2001. The Bill also provides for certain amendments to the Criminal Justice Act 1994 which have arisen in the context of operational experience.
Let me refer briefly to another issue which touches on my area of responsibility, namely, the issue of coroners' inquests. The sub-committee will be aware that one of the criticisms made in the Barron report relates to the period of notice given to the Ludlow family in respect of the original coroner's inquest in 1976. In particular, the Barron inquiry's conclusions deal primarily with the extent of Garda efforts to notify next of kin, its purported authority to refuse a request to adjourn the inquest and what seems to be de facto acceptance by the coroner that the contact made was adequate. The sub-committee will already know that, on foot of a direction from the Attorney General, a new inquest was held into the death of Seamus Ludlow in 2005 and that the coroner returned a verdict of unlawful killing. The next of kin were represented at this second inquest and the Department provided an ex gratia payment to meet the costs of the legal representatives who had acted for them at that inquest.
On the wider issue, current best practice on the part of coroners is to afford the next of kin every opportunity to attend inquests. This stems from an unrelated High Court case which found that there had been a breach of the rules of natural and constitutional justice in failing to give the next of kin an opportunity to be heard at an inquest. This stems from an unrelated High Court case which found that there had been a breach of the rules of natural and constitutional justice in failing to give the next of kin an opportunity to be heard at the inquest. Coroners are now advised that they should be prepared to adjourn an inquest if they are not satisfied that the spouse or next of kin have been properly notified. Moreover, at all times, responsibility for holding the inquest in a proper and fair manner is entirely the coroner's and is not a matter for the Garda Síochána.
A particularly significant development in regard to coroners was my announcement last month of Government approval for the early drafting of a Bill to comprehensively reform the legislation relating to coroners. The background to this development was the report of the coroners review group which recommended a comprehensive overhaul of the coroner service with regard to, first, the legislation governing the work of coroners; second, support services available to them; and, third, the structural organisation of the coroner service. This reform effort was further enhanced by the report of the Coroners Rules Committee in October 2003.
The proposed new Bill, the heads of which have been published, incorporates many of the recommendations made by the coroners review group. It also has regard to developments since in jurisprudence and ongoing reform of coroner services in other common law jurisdictions. I was confronted with the choice before Christmas of bringing forward a remedial Bill to deal with one particular defect of the present law or going ahead with the broad Bill. I was very grateful that the Labour Party tabled a Private Members' Bill which was put through the Oireachtas and which enabled me not to abandon my programme of work to ensure the Bill is drafted and published as quickly as possible.
There are two critical elements involved in the reform of the coroner service: first, the development of optimum structures and administration for a modern coroner service; and, second, the widening of the scope of the inquest. Significantly, the Bill provides for the establishment of a coroner service. On the establishment of the service, full responsibility for coroners, including financial responsibility, will rest with me as Minister and the involvement of local authorities which provide the coroner service and the accommodation for it will cease.
The Bill proposes to widen the scope of the inquest from investigating the proximate medical cause of death, to which it is confined at present, to establishing in what circumstances the deceased met his or her death. Current law in the Act of 1962 and as interpreted by the courts provides for a restrictive approach as to the examination at inquest of "how" the person died. The examination is limited to the proximate medical cause of death. The coroners review group recommended the extension of the remit of the coroner to the investigation of the wider circumstances surrounding a death and that it be expressed in positive terms in any new legislation.
I am conscious that the new coroner legislation must also meet the requirements of the European Convention on Human Rights. Judgments from the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg and decisions about its application in the United Kingdom, in particular a decision of the Law Lords in Britain which interpreted Article 2 as providing for a more extensive investigation of the circumstances of death, seem to indicate that an extension of the scope of an inquest is not simply a policy choice but is effectively required to meet the obligations of the convention. The effect of some judgments of the European Court of Human Rights is that there must be provision for legal aid in cases where there is involvement of the State in the circumstances of the death. The Bill provides that I as Minister may, with the consent of the Minister for Finance, arrange for the granting of legal aid in proceedings before a coroner where a person has died in, or resulting from being in, State custody or in certain institutional care situations.
In summary, the Coroners Bill will radically reform the coroner service. It will provide for a modernisation of the death investigation, post-mortem and inquest procedures so as to ensure a better service to society in general and the relatives of the deceased, in particular, than is currently possible under the 1962 Coroners Act. On this occasion I express deep regret to the family and next of kin of Mr. Seamus Ludlow, on what by any standards was a deeply unsatisfactory and inexcusable experience in the holding of the first coroner's inquest.
I have previously referred to the relationship between the Department and the Garda Síochána which is the focus of some attention in the report. Whatever the nature of that relationship may have been in the 1970s — in particular, 1976 — and whatever about confusion at the time, it is instructive to consider how that relationship is set to evolve considerably with the enactment of the Garda Síochána Bill 2005. Without exaggeration, it is fair to describe the 2005 Act as a fundamental restatement of the relationship between the Department and the Garda since 1922 because it recasts in statute form the formal relationship between the Executive, the Minister, the Oireachtas and the Garda, as well as the latter's relationship with local government. In doing so, it also introduces fundamental structural changes in the Garda Síochána and represents its most significant overhaul since the foundation of the State.
Among the central provisions of the Act which would be of relevance to the consideration of the Ludlow case would be the provision for a Garda Síochána inspectorate because the Act provides for the establishment of an inspectorate tasked with ensuring the resources of the Garda Síochána are used to achieve the highest levels of efficiency and effectiveness compared to best police practice and standards. The inspectorate will monitor the operation and administration of the force and report to me as Minister with advice on best practice. The Department anticipates that a benchmarking process will be undertaken comparing Garda operations with examples of best practice in other jurisdictions. The reports of the inspectorate will be laid before both Houses of the Oireachtas and the chief inspector will, when requested, attend before any relevant Oireachtas committee in connection with any such report.
There is the provision of information by the Garda Commissioner for the Minister. The Act obliges the Garda Commissioner to inform me as Minister, through the Secretary General, of information on any development which might adversely affect public confidence in the service. That is a very strong obligation. The Commissioner, effectively, is obliged from now on, if there is a problem or something is untoward, and has a statutory duty, through the Secretary General of the Department, to inform the Minister of this. It is not a question of saying something has gone somewhat wrong but there is not a public controversy about it; that because nobody is asking us about it, there is no public statement. There is a positive duty on the Commissioner to give me that kind of information in order that I can be fully accountable to the Houses of the Oireachtas.
There is also the question of Garda plans, the details of which I will not go into, as the sub-committee is familiar with them. If there is actual Garda misbehaviour, the Garda Ombudsman Commission, the members of which will be appointed in the next few days, will be in a position to deal with it. The other point to which I should draw the attention of the sub-committee is that it is not simply a matter of external inspectorate-driven standards being imposed from outside on the Garda Síochána because the Commissioner has already established internally a professional standards unit to deal with all of the issues in respect of which the Garda will be held to account by the inspectorate.
The Garda investigation into the murder of Seamus Ludlow, undoubtedly, had good and, unfortunately, very bad points. The 1976 investigation, as Judge Barron said, was a professional one but what happened in 1979 cannot be stood over. I do not think any member of the Garda Síochána has since attempted to do so. I cannot do a better job of highlighting these issues than was done by the inquiry. On the basis of the findings of the Barron report, the Ludlow family, undoubtedly, has a sound basis for feeling very aggrieved at a number of events surrounding the murder, including those relating to the interview of suspects and the original coroner's inquest. While somebody can never guarantee that things will not go wrong again in specific Garda investigations, the accountability arrangements now in place are up to date and robust. The Coroners Bill and the Garda Síochána Act will formalise arrangements and responsibilities in a far more transparent and modern manner, which is to the benefit of everyone, not least gardaí who work day and night at the front line in protecting society from those who would murder, maim and destroy innocent people.
I thank the sub-committee for its attention. The Secretary General, Mr. Aylward, my officials and I will be glad to answer any questions asked to the best of our ability.