Republican News · Thursday 25 April 2002

Abbeylara inquiry welcomed

The Dáil voted last week to establish a Tribunal of Inquiry into the shooting by gardaí of John Carthy at Abbeylara, County Longford, two years ago this month. The inquiry was welcomed by Cavan/Monaghan TD Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin.

Speaking in the Dáil debate on Abbeylara, Ó Caoláin said that John Carthy was "at times a troubled young man but a young man who had the support of his family and of his community. They testified after his death, and have maintained that he was not a man who posed a danger to anyone, except perhaps to himself." He said that even before the death of John Carthy, and while the siege at Abbeylara, was ongoing, major questions were being raised about the nature of the Garda operation. Ó Caoláin said:

"I believe that the response to what was essentially a limited and containable incident was extremely excessive. A disturbance involving a young man whose mind was troubled and who needed above all reassurance and assistance was turned into a full-blown armed siege.

"We must question and challenge the decision at senior Garda level to send in armed Special Branch gardaí and, even more questionably, the elite, secretive and heavily armed Emergency Response Unit."

Ó Caolain said the inquiry was long overdue and he supported the call of the Carthy family for its proceedings to be held in Longford.