High Drama at the
McBrearty/Anti-Corruption meeting in Dublin.
Sunday November 20, 2005 06:47
by
Brian Nugent
A short account of the meeting on Garda, legal
and state corruption chaired by Frank McBrearty
at the Mansion House Dublin 20 Nov 2005.
(My apologies in advance for any errors and
omissions.)
Frank McBrearty:
Condemned "crime correspondents who try to
brainwash people every week" with their hyping
of gangland and other crimes. As he sees it they are
just basically working for the garda press office. He
also outlined that most of the posters they tried to
put up to advertise the meeting were immediately
pulled down by Dublin corporation. As well as this in
the regular media there was an organised campaign to
mislead people into thinking the meeting had been
cancelled. He was pleased at the attendance therefore
in the light of this campaign.
Eamonn McCann:
He started by relating a story about his long time
friend Nicky Kelly. He said that as luck would have
it during the 80s he was for a time political
correspondent of the Sunday World and when invited to
dinner with the then tanaiste Michael O'Leary he
decided to challenge him on the question of Nicky
Kelly. The only reply he got though was that the
garda commissioner had assured him that Kelly was
guilty and after all, as O'Leary explained, you
"don't question the word of a guard". But
as Eamonn sees it goes deeper than that. In practise
"politicians are frightened of the guards
because the guards know where the bodies are
buried." As regards the anti-corruption
campaign, he feels that political financial and garda
corruption are all mixed up together and its no good
tackling it via individual cases. For example if you
look to tribunals or public inquiries to solve your
problem don't forget that they are run by the same
judiciary that many are accusing of being corrupt. He
wants a much broader political campaign and in fact
he called for a slate of candidates that could be
endorsed by this movement in time for the next
election. The candidates could still be members of
other parties, just affiliated to this movement in
some way.
Sean Crowe TD:
He explained that he comes from the real world and
growing up in Dublin he knew the garda stations where
you'd be routinely beaten up by the gardai even over
small things like not having a lamp on a bicycle. But
at the time "society said this didn't
happen." Allegations were just dismissed
claiming that "this was just the words of
subversives or criminals. Many of the people who were
beaten up in the garda stations ended up in
institutions" and now we know what happened to
them there. "If you want to see justice don't go
to any of the courts in this country." He stated
that when people take a case against the gardai it is
routine for false charges to be served on the person
making the claim and then they will offer to drop
that charge if the claimant drops their (real) charge
against the gardai. He himself was assaulted in a
garda station by the heavy gang for putting up
anti-EU posters. He personally experienced the
physical and mental abuse that people suffer in garda
stations. He stated that it was "not a handful
of corrupt gardai" that was the problem rather
it was "down to a police force with unimpeded
power" but now there was "a few cracks in
the wall" of this corruption in the justice
system.
Frank Connolly:
He is struck when he attends these meetings at the
"vast number of people deeply hurt by agencies
of the state....and the avalanche of allegations
against the judiciary , the gardai etc.." His
group, the Centre for Public Inquiry, is actually
inundated with so many cases that he now realises
that they simply don't have the resources to deal
with them. Instead of talking further about the
"so called Irish justice system" he
outlined his history of digging up corruption in the
planning system and highlighted the story of Tom
Gilmartin. Gilmartin has alledged that his life was
ruined by a combination of some powerful Irish
businessmen, Ireland's largest bank, the UK inland
revenue and, Connolly pointed out, there are even
allegations about two taoisigh and "a [sic!]
serving taoiseach".
Aisling Reidy Irish Council for Civil Liberties:
She has highlighted the fact that over the course of
the life of the ICCL the gardai and state agencies
are actually getting more and more draconian powers
despite all the evidence that has emerged since the
Sallins case of the gardai abusing those powers. This
she feels is because the majority of people still
need to be persuaded that this abuse of power is the
main problem. They in fact are heavily influenced by
the media highlighting of things like gang warfare,
which is what happens when the "government
constantly plays the politics of fear". So to
address this she feels its very important for people
to build as broad an alliance as possible.
Osgur Breatnach:
He "bears witness to torture....conspiracy to
kidnap"...that was conducted in this state. He
traces the origin of the heavy gang to Ned Garvey who
was later discovered to have worked for British
Intelligence. Garvey apparently recruited that group
as a "systematic torture system". He was
obviously arrested, on false charges, as part of a
roundup of 40 people taken into custody as part of
the Sallins Train robbery saga. Over 10 of those
arrested were subsequently tortured and Osgur
described the screams that he heard in the Bridewell
before his turn came to be tortured. During his
ordeal he contemplated hanging himself and eventually
was driven to sign a false statement. This was done
during the FG-Lab coalition and when they were
succeeded by the incoming FF govt. Garvey was sacked
but all the rest of the gardai involved were promoted
by that govt. In any case the subsequent legal
proceedings went on for a long time during which he
and his family were constantly harassed and received
intimidating phonecalls etc. He also found himself
black listed so he couldn't get normal employment.
The late Mary Reid was involved in trying to
highlight his case incidentally and he would like to
join with her family in pressing for a proper
investigation into her death in Donegal. Eventually
he had to settle out of court under threat of
financial ruin. So the outcome in fact was that tax
payers money was used to just cover it up, he never
really got justice, the gardai were never held
accountable for what they did to him and so he feels
that history is repeating itself with all these new
cases. It was inevitable it would only get worse if
no justice was done then and "that is the
relevance of the past to the
present"."Deaths in custody have
increased" and the situation has only continued
to deteriorate. He feels "the whole barrel"
of the gardai is rotten not just a few bad apples. On
an ominous note he found out in the course of the
documentary he narrated (on TG4) that the Department
of Justice have "active files on 1 in 5 adult
males" in this state.
Nicky Kelly (of the famous miscarriage of justice
etc):
He feels there are "thousands and thousands of
people.. citizens of this country..who get no redress
[only a] stone wall" when they seek justice. He
has been "inundated by ordinary people"
looking for his help in seeking justice.
Unfortunately he feels that most of the politicians
are looking for an easy life and "don't really
care" about these cases. In fact he is very
pessimistic about most of these cases ever getting
justice in Ireland. He thinks they could only hope to
get "justice under their [dept and minister of
justice etc] conditions" which is not real
justice at all. He doesn't think contacting
councillors or TD's does much good. In fact, in his
experience, you will "never ever get your issue
dealt with" you will only find yourself in a
"correspondence course". In a clearly very
sincere and blunt speech he simply said "look at
the nature of our country and people at the
moment". Most of the politicians in Leinster
House just perceive the people at this meeting as
"cranks" and clearly it is going to be a
long struggle if people hope to get justice.
Joe Higgins TD:
Like so many indigent workers he finds himself on a
payment plan as he tries to pay back his debts to
Fingal Co. Council. He owes them 15,000 pounds for 5
hours work put in by a barrister employed by the
council when they successfully took legal action
against him over the bin tax protests for which he
was jailed. He made the point that there are large
numbers of people out there that are completely
unable to pay sums like that and that this makes
constitutional rights a bit of a dead letter for a
large swathe of the Irish population. There is also
in practice no way that a TD can hold judges to
account, since any criticism at all of judges are
ruled out of order by the Cahoirleach in the Dail.
Dan Boyle TD:
He talked about the difficulties of holding the
system to account and he offered his services to help
out a new independent movement that would challenge
the corruption.
A former inter county ladies GAA player.:
She was sexually assaulted by a garda who was working
as a coach of the local Ladies GAA club. She made a
complaint to the Garda Complaints Board but that got
nowhere until another person made a similar complaint
against the same person. This time the garda in
question was tipped off and intimidated the potential
witnesses and the victim. Now she finds herself
constantly harassed, intimidated and ostracised in
her local community while the garda has risen in the
ranks of the GAA. It is, she feels, a complete and
blatant coverup by gardai and the Ladies GAA.
Phillip Flood:
He was beaten unconscious by the gardai and it was
his efforts to get justice over that which has lead
to him being harassed by them."Taken into
custody several times but never found guilty of
anything." Nobody would help...solicitors
..politicians...even doctors and unfortunately he has
been left mentally and physically damaged. As far as
he is concerned 90% of the gardai and politicians are
"all evil".
Eugene Bradley from Armagh:
He has been living a life these last few years like a
"James Bond movie". It has arisen from the
actions of a corrupt solicitor who seems to be able
to marshal the forces of the PSNI against him. He
gave just one example of the way in which his phone
is constantly cut off. As regards the anti-corruption
campaign his message was "unite unite" and
don't fall out with one another whatever happens.
Meanwhile "he is working 24/7 to stay
alive." He wished to point out to everybody at
the meeting that he is clearly in good health (for
the obvious reason that if he should not be alive in
the near future that people would be skeptical of the
explanation given).
John Clery:
Speaking on behalf of a relative who was raped. His
nephew and this relative get nothing but a litany of
obscene verbal abuse from the gardai in Kilkenny when
they try to get it investigated.
Kathleen Twomey:
The mother of 8 children (and shows it in her
unflappability and determination!). She has been 13
years trying to get justice over a property dispute
in Mallow. She is a professional florist and with her
husband purchased a property in Mallow for, I think ,
117,000 pounds in c.1990. She purchased the property
with the help of a family solicitor. What she didn't
realise was that this solicitor had been secretary of
the company that owned the property before her. In
any case various problems started to arise two years
into paying off the loan they took out to purchase
the property. The upshot is that she was deprived of
the property for non payment of the loan despite the
fact that at the time that happened the property was
worth many times what was outstanding on the loan.
This story descended into a long argument between a
pressed-for-time Frank McBrearty
and-a-determined-to-have-her-say Mrs Twomey.
On behalf of the late John Maloney junior.:
A friend of this person's family outlined his case.
He had been arrested as part of a drugs search and
taken to Rathfarnham garda station, I believe. No
drugs were found but he was reported to have been
held on an existing warrant over car insurance. He
was found in a coma outside but near the garda
station the next day and died 13 days later in
hospital. The State pathologist stated that it was a
drugs overdose but the hospital test done on him
showed only minute traces of cocaine. The family feel
that the statements given by the gardai to the
inquest are very "choreographed" but they
have run out of options in trying to get justice
because don't have enough money to take any legal
action. Meanwhile they now face "cruel vicious
and organised harassment" from the gardai in
Crumlin. A relative had an arm broken over this and
their house is raided regularly including twice this
week as part of the so called crack down on gangs.
Since the family have no hope of getting justice in
the Irish courts, particularly because of the cost,
this friend made the point that maybe the TD's on the
panel might like to conduct some kind of inquiry into
it so that somehow the family can get their case
heard.
Larry Wheelock (brother of Terence):
He outlined how the cell where his brother was
alleged to have committed 'suicide' was renovated
immediately after the incident effectively ruining it
as a potential crime scene from the point of view of
gathering evidence. He also stated that custody
records have been doctored. Meanwhile (yet again)
this family are also facing intimidation by the
gardai.
Joe Mooney (on behalf of the Mulhall family of
Dublin city):
Jimmy and the rest of this family were prominent
anti-drugs campaigners and for this reason they have
faced 10 years of constant harassment from the
gardai. They were constantly stopped, strip searched
etc (to look for drugs on a family that was
campaigning against them). Jimmy was beaten up in
garda stations ("unrecognisable when he came
out") and incredibly his 10 year old son Wayne
was stopped and searched. Wayne has now had non stop
harassment as well since this time, for example he
was beaten up at one point by the gardai repetitively
banging a car door against him. The family are at
their wits end. All the local politicians know all
about this harassment but still it doesn't stop and
this family know of this kind of thing happening to
other families all over the city.
Helen:
Representing her husband who has been wrongfully
imprisoned for 5 years now. (I think this is from
Kilkenny.)
Dan McCaffrey from Omagh:
Involves fraud , blackmail and extortion in the
Republic from 1981. Couldn't even get a solicitor to
take his case despite huge efforts to get one.
Amazingly, and tellingly, the only politician who has
tried to help this proud Irish Republican is one
Dr.Ian Paisley ! He was serious and will be relaying
the content of the meeting back to the Dr and his
son.
Padraig O'Reilly the psychiatric nurse from Mayo.:
(A sentence has been removed here at the request of
the author. It was in reference to a Coronors court.
This statement was not made by the person at the
meeting to the whole audience using the microphone.
In fact the author would like to apologise for the
impression that it was and to the Coronors court if
this is in fact an inaccurate reference.
Nocorrespondence has been received by him or by
indymedia in reference to this from the court. -AN
EDITOR) He has been trying for many years to
highlight what was done to a psychiatric patient who
died while in garda custody. He elaborated on the
sustained campaign of slander waged against him since
he started making these complaints. Posters were put
up, forged documents on garda notepaper were
distributed in the locality in a slander campaign
very similar to that which hit the McBreartys and
involved the usual Special Branch Detectives. Because
of this campaign and black listing he, and his
family, has been 13 years without a steady wage which
as you appreciate must make it very difficult to stay
the legal course that is unfolding.
Peter Preston from Dublin:
He explained that it was his idea to invite Joe
Costello TD to the meeting and the reason he wanted
to do this was to challenge him face to face with
certain allegations.... At which point he was cut off
by Frank McBrearty who explained that Joe Costello
was a friend of his who had always helped him and his
family and he would not tolerate allegations like
that being aired at the meeting. After much argument
Peter resumed his story on the basis that he would
relate the facts about his daughter only. So he
stated that his daughter had been assaulted with a
broken glass in a drinking club and he had
established proof of a conspiracy to cover it up
involving gardai and judges and for which he had even
been on hunger strike outside the dail. At which
point he outlined his allegations against Costello.
Basically he said that he had given important
documents (transcripts of a court case) on his case
to Costello and when he got them back some were
missing and some changed....whereupon...
Joe Costello TD:
....the Labour spokesman on Justice took the
microphone in order to respond to these allegations.
He said that he had tried to help Mr Preston with the
case involving his daughter and as part of that he
gave the documents to two lawyers in turn to look
over and see was there any legal avenue that
Mr.Preston could go down to get justice. One of these
lawyers is a legal adviser to the Labour party. While
the second lawyer had the documents Mr.Preston had
told him that he wasn't interested in pursuing it
with that lawyer and that he just wanted his
documents back. At that he got the documents back
from this lawyer and gave them to Mr.Preston in, as
far as he is concerned, as complete a manner as he
received them. Joe had spoken earlier in praise of
the meeting and had also added the information that
there is some hold up in the appointment of the three
man gardai ombudsman commission because apparently
there is a problem with one of them not related to
any scandal or anything. (Presumably one of the
candidates doesn't want the job?).
Thomas McManus a native of Co.Leitrim:
He launched into what seemed like a very involved
philosophical discourse which threatened to stretch
into a detailed critique of the celtic race...At
which point some in the crowd began to debate the
merits of listening to all this as the clock ticked
on relentlessly and ruinously for those other victims
who were trying to get in. I regret to say that it
may have even been felt in some quarters that this
particular clock conundrum was not unrelated to the
reason why he was speaking. So the upshot was that
McBrearty was bawling 'time' and much of the rest of
the crowd were demanding the microphone while Thomas
manfully soldiered on.... getting as far as the
Vikings ....before eventually some not overly patient
Dub laid a hand on his jacket ...the mic was
recovered and the meeting rumbled on.
Eileen:
Her son was murdered by a police informant who had 20
plus warrants out for his arrest but still met with
his garda handler on the day of the murder without
being arrested. The informant in fact advised that
garda on that date that there was going to be a
killing but no effort was made to stop it. This
happened to her son as he coming back from his
fathers funeral. She has not got one positive answer
back from any of the political parties.
Jim Cairns from Antrim later of Kilkenny:
He spoke after Jim Gunney and pointed out that he
might have information that would assist him in his
case. Jim has written and campaigned on the question
of gardai (and politicians) being involved in the
missing persons cases in the Midlands and he must
have been very interested in what Mr Gunney was
saying. He stated simply that there is a group in
Ireland abducting people and that the guards are
covering this up. ( http://www.missingpersons-ireland.freepress-freespeech.com/newbook.htm
)
Jim Gunney (spelt as pronounced):
Late in the meeting the audience was transfixed by
the following story. Jim, and his neighbours, made a
citizens arrest of a man that was attempting to
abduct his daughter. While they held him before his
transfer to Ashbourne (Co. Meath ) garda station this
man told them that he was a very powerful person and
that they didn't realise the full implications of
what they were trying to do. It also transpired that
he knew all about Jim and the fact that he had
custody of his daughter after a family case. When
they got to the garda station they found out that
this man was in fact 'a senior garda' who was in some
sense in charge of some of the investigations into
the missing person cases in the midlands. He
described then that after this incident all hell
broke loose in terms of his relationship to the
gardai. Both he and his neighbour have been subjected
to assaults (including a broken leg) and threats etc
from the gardai. This culminated in an incident where
he received a phonecall from this neighbour who is
also being harassed, asking him to meet him because
the caller said that he had located the accomplices
of the 'senior garda' in the abduction attempt. He
was on his way out to the meeting when it dawned on
him that his caller had looked for directions that
his neighbour would have known already. But the
caller ID on his phone had shown it originated from
this neighbour. Nonetheless he decided to ring the
father of this person and it then transpired that
this neighbour had been arrested and the chip from
his phone had been taken which accounts for the
correct caller ID on the hoax call he had received.
He believes this was an attempt to kill him.
Jump To Comment: Buy a Trailer
by
Bill Sun Nov 20,
2005 14:23
Related Link: http://www.constitutionofireland.com/
Let people speak by
Conor Martin - none Mon Nov 21, 2005 02:09
Related Link: http://www.missingpersons-ireland.freepress-freespeech.com/RTEsatanicsymbol.htm
Thanks Brian - Postering must
be allowed back - Huge need for Ombudsman by
Michael R. Mon Nov 21,
2005 18:06
Related Link: http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=66682
Number of comments per page
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