Concern over probe into schoolboy's custody death

19/10/2005 - 12:54:17
Obsolete legislation from the 1920s is being used to inquire into the death of a schoolboy in garda custody, the Dáil heard today.

Labour leader Pat Rabbitte said that the Commission of Investigation Act passed last year would be more suitable to probe the death of 14-year-old Brian Rossiter rather than the Dublin Metropolitan Police Act from 1924 which was recommended by the justice minister.

Brian, 14, died after he was held overnight in Clonmel Garda Station on September 10, 2002 with the consent of his father.

He was found to be in a coma the next morning and died two days later.

Mr Rabbitte reiterated that the State pathologist relied on information from the gardaí that Brian was drunk and drugged before his death but a toxicology report found no traces of either alcohol or drugs in his system.

“This is a matter of grave public concern and this piece of obsolete, ancient legislation…it has never been used before.”

“It is very odd and quite farcical,” Mr Rabbitte said.

He added: “The Commission of Investigations Act would seem to be tailor made for this inquiry.”

The Dublin TD said justice minister Michael McDowell had tried to apply the 1924 legislation to probe the circumstances of how Dublin drug addict Dean Lyons “confessed” to two murders while in custody in 1997. It later emerged he could not have committed either crime.

Mr Rabbitte said: “The minister is either so chuffed with his discovery of this Act that he wants to use it somewhere or else that the truth is deliberately being prevented from coming out."

Taoiseach Bertie Ahern said Mr McDowell was satisfied with the format of the inquiry and that it will uncover the truth.

The barrister carrying out the investigation, Hugh Harnett SC, will be able to summon serving and retired gardaí to give evidence on oath and later make findings in his published report.

Mr Ahern said the decision to hold the inquiry in private is to prevent proceedings becoming adversarial.

“Nobody can refuse to contribute to this or be investigated by it,” he said.

“It is the minister’s intention to make sure that this matter is dealt with fully and to the satisfaction of the family.”

Brian’s father, Pat has said that the family cannot afford to co-operate with the inquiry.

It was not that the family did not want to co-operate, but that they did not have a choice, he said.

The inquiry, which intends to sit in Dublin, will not pay expenses to the Rossiter family. Legal teams have complained that the proposed costs will not cover their preliminary work and involvement with the hearings.

The Rossiters and their solicitor, Cian O’Carroll, have also complained that the inquiry’s terms of reference are too narrow and will be unable to answer the question of why Brian died.