CRUSH THE CRIMINALS

Use anti-IRA trials to fight thugs, says FF SF finally goes soft on non-jury courts Fine Gael want task forces in several towns

PUBLIC outrage at the crisis of crime sweeping the country is dominating the election campaign as parties finally respond to demands for action.

In the wake of the horrific killing of teenager Keane Mulready-Woods, and a wave of gangland shootings, Fianna Fáil is demanding anti-IRAstyle trials to crack down on violent thugs who leave communities terrified on the streets of their towns.

And while Sinn Féin ended its longheld opposition to the non-jury courts, Fine Gael proposed a crime taskforce.

But even as the politicians responded to the public outcry, two more men were gunned down in the capital in what is a

suspected gangland attack and a Cork family was mourning a student who was stabbed to death for trying to stop a group from gatecrashing a party. Fianna Fáil Justice spokesman Jim O’Callaghan said yesterday he wanted gangland suspects to face the court system currently used against the IRA, in which someone can be convicted solely on the belief of a Garda Superintendent that the defendant was guilty.

The measure would bring some of the most sweeping anti-crime laws in decades and throw out standard rules of evidence for non-terrorist cases. Mr O’Callaghan described the horrific murder of 17-year-old Keane MulreadyWoods as a ‘turning point’, comparing it to the murder of Veronica Guerin in 1996.

He wants changes to section 3 (2) of the Offences Against The State Act, which allows the Special Criminal Court to convict someone of IRA membership solely on the belief of a Garda Superintendent that they are guilty.

The section has been tested many times before the courts and the Supreme Court has ruled that it is not a violation of human rights.

In 2015, on an appeal by a dissident republican, the Supreme Court said it was constitutional only adding that the convicting court should make ‘a careful assessment of the credibility of the belief’.

Mr O’Callaghan said that gangland figures must be treated in a similar fashion if ‘a person is a member of an illegal organisation such as a criminal gang’.

Mr O’Callaghan said the Special Criminal Court should be used because of the difficulty to get members of the public to give evidence, or serve as jurors, in the trials of gangland figures ‘who are going around murdering children’.

The Taoiseach also eagerly sought to show he was being tough on gangs by suggesting a crime task force for six or seven towns across Ireland, including Drogheda, where the ongoing crime feud led to the death and dismemberment of the 17-year-old.

‘What I would like to do, if re-elected to office, is to expand [the task force] to maybe six or seven other parts of the country, and I think Drogheda will be one of them. I think what’s going to reassure people is the increased Garda presence that we’ve seen in Drogheda,’ he said.

The Government wants to adapt what it has used in Dublin’s north inner city, where a special crime task force had helped to reduce crime, he said.

And Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald has softened the party’s opposition to the Special Criminal Court and instead called for a review of non-jury courts. The party would accept the use of such trials if they were found to be needed in the fight against crime. Sinn Féin has traditionally been opposed to the Special Criminal Court and has previously campaigned to repeal the legislation underpinning it. It has been used since 1974 to convict hundreds of members of the Provisional IRA, Sinn Féin’s former paramilitary wing.

However, barrister Michael

O’Higgins told the Irish Daily Mail that the anti-IRA-style measures may not apply as easily to members of a gang.

He said criminal gangs are much more ‘diffuse’ and ‘ephemeral than the IRA and this would make it harder.

‘The IRA, by way of example, has an army council, has a GHQ, it has a structure. It has members, people who are sworn in, there is a rulebook, and there is discipline proceedings. A lot of these gangs are formed sort of organically and very often in response to the most recent event, you don’t have that kind of hierarchy or structure,’ said Mr O’Higgins.

Mr O’Callaghan’s proposal has been criticised by the Irish Council for Civil Liberties who said the measures was ‘unnecessary, impractical, and would undermine the very principles of lawfulness that we are seeking to defend’.

Director Liam Herrick said: ‘We must not respond to these criminal organisations by sacrificing the cornerstone of our legal system, namely the principle that everyone is innocent until proven guilty.’

Killing compared to Guerin murder