DUBLIN, (Reuters) – Ireland plans to allow the use in court of secret surveillance evidence to respond to gangland murders and Northern Irish paramilitary shootings, the justice minister said yesterday.
Ireland has drafted new legislation in response to the murder of rugby player Shane Geoghegan in the western city of Limerick in November and the shootings of two soldiers and a policeman in Northern Ireland in March, Dermot Ahern said.
Irish cities such as Limerick have long suffered from gangland violence, drug trafficking and money laundering — activities which also often sustain the paramilitary groups operating in Northern Ireland, a part of the United Kingdom.
But the latest crimes, including another killing in Limerick this month in revenge for a family giving evidence in court, have amounted to a “deliberate attack on the very foundations of our criminal system”, Ahern said.
The new law will allow police to use in court evidence gathered by secret electronic surveillance methods for up to three months if authorised by a judge or in urgent cases for 72 hours based on the instructions of a senior police officer.
“There will always be people who will have issues with this …intrusive surveillance but there are checks and balances in the way the bill is framed,” Ahern told a news conference.
An increased police presence in the traditionally impoverished Limerick area helped cut the number of offences, but the high profile murders since November have shown the need for additional measures, Irish police chief Fachtna Murphy said.
