IT looks like an ordinary laboratory except for the long, stained plank across the work-bench. Dark stains splatter the middle of the plank with small definite patterns around them.
The stains are the blood of an elderly man. The plank is a floorboard taken from the house where he was beaten to death. And the patterns are believed to be the rubber shoeprints of two men who killed him.
The State Forensic Lab is full of items lifted out of the chaos of a crime scene and unpacked in the calm of the lab for detailed examination. In one room, fresh air is pumped by fan to dry blood-soaked clothes; slowly, so the composition of the blood does not degenerate. The smell is overwhelming.
Elsewhere, samples of charred rubble from a fire await analysis by the scientists to determine whether petrol or some other substance was used to start the fire. Nearby is a mangled mountain bike.
The work of the 48 scientists at the laboratory is painstaking and exact. In one room a woman is examining a tiny fragment of glass under a microscope. The glass has been heated in oil to determine its melting point so it can be matched to other glass samples. The glass examined here could come from a hitand-run car accident, a robbery or a case of deliberately contaminated food.
Since its establishment in 1975 the lab has been involved in analysing samples from more than 80,000 cases. The man in charge for those 24 years, Dr Jim Donovan, worked for the State lab at Upper Merrion Street before the forensic lab in its move to the Phoenix Park in 1978. Those criminals who plan their crimes meticulously have Dr Donovan and his scientists in mind. A trace left at the scene may be the difference between a conviction and walking free. While every TV criminal wears gloves to disguise his fingerprints, real-life criminals have been known to spray a lacquer on their hands to further disguise their fingerprints and absorb any firearms residue that results from firing a gun. Those planning a job will commonly wear a second outer layer of clothes and overshoes to avoid leaving fibres or prints for the detectives who will examine the scene.
In one case a man who was involved in an arson attack on a Kerry hotel was burned in the blaze. The skin on one of his hands was burnt so badly in the fire that it "fell away like a glove" and was found at the scene of the fire. When the man's hand grew a new layer of skin, scientists were able to match the fingerprints from the new skin with the old "hand" left at the scene.
Three kinds of scenes-of-crime kits are sent from the lab to garda stations for use as training material for gardai learning to preserve a scene. Explosive-residue kits and hair-combing kits are used to test for traces. The hair-combing kit is used to collect any fibres from a balaclava or other disguise from a suspect. Rape and sexual assault kits are also prepared, for use mainly in Temple Street Children's Hospital and the Rotunda sexual assault unit. "About 14 per cent of men are among those raped, a figure that has increased dramatically from nothing," Dr Donovan says.
In one corner of the lab a PC holds the "prints" of 7,000 different types of shoe on the Sicar database. Many of the footprints are those of trainers - often if a footprint is found at a scene it can not only be proved that a certain brand of trainer made the print, but individual marks on the sole can be matched between the print and the shoe that made it. A footprint is "very good evidence," Donovan says. "Trainers are very common, but there are a lot of them with unique characteristics."
The evidence of forensic science is generally used to support a case, rather than as the sole prosecution evidence. Where the forensic science is vital to a prosecution, juries can find themselves trying to decipher the details of microbiology presented by an expert and argued between well-briefed barristers. "Some juries can be quick and very quickly work out the details. In other cases they're lost simply because they didn't understand," Dr Donovan says. "In one way Irish juries are more accepting of scientists giving evidence - if they feel things are straightforward they don't necessarily need or feel they need to understand."
The scientists are obliged to give evidence in court in relation to what they have ascertained in the lab. The majority of defendants plead guilty if they know there is solid forensic evidence against them. None of the scientists has had to be under protection since Dr Donovan's own garda protection ended after the attempt on his life by the Dublin criminal Martin Cahill.
"If it arose, and certainly there is an increasing amount of violence amongst criminals, then protection would be available. But I'm the last one here to have been given protection. It's very difficult to work in very tight security, so you take reasonable precautions."
One of the latest tasks given to the lab is the analysis of cattle tags. The identity tags are put on the ear of cattle to certify their BSE-free status. However, cattle smugglers have been known to switch tags from BSE-free herds to other animals.
The fact that a tag that has been removed and reattached can be forensically proven. Although it seems the work could be carried out by scientists in Department of Agriculture labs those staff are not trained to write the court report to accompany the scientific finding. "We are used to giving evidence, of analysing things so that they get through the courts."
The analysis of drugs has become the lab's main activity. Last year they dealt with 7,500 drugs cases, more than double the 3,000 non-drugs cases that passed through their hands. In the past five years hundreds of thousands of Ecstasy tablets have been sent to the lab; rather than examining each tablet in what could be a consignment of thousands, the accepted norm is to examine a sample, usually the square root of the total. If 64 tablets are seized, eight are analysed.
The flood of Ecstasy was followed by a flood of fake Ecstasy: ephedrine, a mild stimulant derived from a Chinese herbal drug and used to treat asthmatics, and Ketamine, an animal anaesthetic, were both being sold as Ecstasy. Meanwhile the State lab has identified more than four different types of MDMA, the chemical name for Ecstasy, being sold on the streets. The lab has seen a huge increase in the quantities of amphetamine powder and tablets being seized, a situation that mirrors a widespread increase in use of the drug.
Asked about the doubts that surrounded forensic evidence following miscarriages of justice in cases based on forensics, such as the Guildford Four, Dr Donovan says the context was different.
"Large numbers of people were killed in England in bombings, and the police - and every organ of the state - were put under great presure. Some of the techniques were open to question. Others have just made errors. The main thing is to make sure that people working to establish forensic evidence are not under extensive pressure."
In one case, traces of nitroglycerine were found on the hands of seven suspects 12 to 14 hours after they could have had contact with explosives.
"Nitro-glycerine seeps through the skin and is changed or metabolised by the body very quickly - within a few hours. So to say that a trace could be detected 12 hours later was totally incorrect."
With larger drug seizures, advances in DNA profiling and new techniques for linking a suspect with a crime the workload of the laboratory looks set to increase. In the next decade it is certain more crimes will be solved through a microscope.
