asked the Minister for Justice if he will make a statement on his failure to comply with a request from Dún Laoghaire District Court on 17 June for a ministerial order on the detention of a man accused of rape and assault.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Dún Laoghaire Court Request.
21.
In the light of recent publicity given to this case, I have to say more than I would normally wish to about an individual defendant. The man in question has not, of course, been convicted of any offence. He was charged with "attempting to have unlawful carnal knowledge of a female against her will".
He was committed to Mountjoy Prison on remand in October 1976. He was certified by two doctors to be of unsound mind in November 1976 and transferred to the Central Mental Hospital by order of the Minister for Justice, under section 13 of the Lunatic Asylums (Ireland) Act, 1875 as amended and extended. His case has been considered in court on numerous occasions since then and has been adjourned. The court has had the benefit of psychiatrists' opinion throughout.
The medical authorities at Dundrum had made several efforts to have him accepted in a local psychiatric hospital and in other institutions. None of the institutions approached was prepared to accept this man as an in-patient.
In mid-1981 his treatment programme was intensified with a view to speeding up his gradual return to a life in the community. Following a recommendation by the psychiatrist who was treating the offender in Dundrum, the then Minister for Justice approved the daily release of the patient to a unit for the mentally handicapped where he began a re-training course on 2 June 1981. He continued on this course until 3 March 1982, when his temporary release had to be terminated because he failed to abide by conditions and his conduct gave cause for serious concern.
The case came before the courts again in early June 1982 when it was again made clear to the court that institutional care in an institution other than the Central Mental Hospital was still not available. At the court hearing on 17 June 1982, the district justice stated that he would adjourn the case to 24 June to enable me to make an appropriate order in the case. It was far from clear what type of order was required. Having regard to the length of time the defendant has been on remand and the number of the issues involved, the notice given me to deal with a very cryptic message from the District Court was, in my opinion, unrealistic. On 24 June the court struck out the charges.
I am satisfied that any order by me for the defendant's transfer from the Central Mental Hospital was not a practical proposition: of course, once the court struck out the charge, I ceased to have any function whatsoever in relation to the man in question.
Does the Minister accept then that he did not comply with the request of the district justice to report on this case?
I did what it was open to me to do at the time in so far as I could do it.
Did the Minister reply to the district justice as requested?
I did what I considered was necessary and appropriate for me to do at the time.
I asked did the Minister or his Department give the report——
The Deputy has been given a reply.
It is an important issue which I have brought up before.
Having regard to the circumstances as they were before me I did the appropriate and correct thing.
It is my information that this report was not forthcoming to the district justice and therefore the charges were struck out. I would ask the Minister would he not accept that the perception of the public would be that a Minister for Justice who at the moment has a campaign under way exhorting the public to co-operate with the Garda in cutting down on crime and vandalism appears in a very strange light in that he did not comply with the request of the district justice? Is the Minister aware that this man is now held illegally, there was no further order made with regard to his detention? With the permission of the Ceann Comhairle I would like to bring this issue up on the Adjournment.
The Chair will communicate with the Deputy.
Could the Minister indicate what the enormous difficulty was in complying with the District Court request when he had seven days to comply?
As I have stated before, I did what was necessary.
Can the Minister tell the House what information was made available to the district justice on 24 June which would have allowed him to adopt any other course, or what request was put by the Minister's representative in court that might have afforded the Minister further time?
I have given a very exhaustive reply and I do not intend to add further to it. It is amazing that Deputy Fennell and her colleagues seem to be the only people who have found fault with the campaign of crime prevention.
Can the Minister indicate whether he or his Department were separately legally represented before the District Court on 24 June and if not why not?
I have given my reply.
The Minister himself has referred to the campaign of crime prevention. Can the Minister tell the House in the simplest terms what resources, other than a very high profile public campaign centred on his own personality, he has invested in this campaign?
(Interruptions.)
This relates to a specific case.
Had the Minister not mentioned this campaign against crime——
Is the Deputy offended by it?
Let us suppose that I had emigrated for 20 years and had come back to this country yesterday, what would I see on the streets that had not been there last week that is attributable to this campaign and to nothing else?
Could the Deputy hold his supplementary for a couple of minutes? It relates to the next question.