The second point I will make is as follows. Why does a Dublin Deputy have any interest in this case? For me it is mainly due to the man behind me, Deputy McGuinness, who has raised this consistently in the previous Parliament and in the one before that. He made such an impression on me that I travelled to Carrickmacross to meet Lucia and her husband Jim. If this story was not true it would make a thriller. The manner in which Lucia O’Farrell and her family have investigated this would leave even the most proficient forensic scientist or detective in the ha’penny place. They have unearthed a litany of errors, travesties and absences of connection between the judicial system, the Garda, the Probation Service and the bail service that even if you only had one question – and that was nothing to do with Shane but with the system – it would be if it happened in this case, how many other cases do these kind of errors happen in.
For that reason alone, we need to delve deeper into this.
The final point I want to make in the appallingly brief time Parliament affords us to go into these issues, unfortunately, relates to a comment made recently by the Ceann Comhairle, Deputy Ó Fearghaíl, when he was talking about the security of politicians. One of the points he made that made an impression on me was that it might help us a little from a security point of view if we followed through on the commitments we made and if, more often than not, we did what we said we would do.
I support everything Deputy Brendan Smith said about the unanswered questions that have been left here and that the family deserves to have answered.
