A new inquiry into the Abbeylara shooting may have to be considered if the Oireachtas sub-committee is unable to finish its work, the Minister for Justice said yesterday.
Mr O'Donoghue said he hoped the committee, which has adjourned following a request by nine members of the Garda Emergency Response Unit (ERU) for exemptions from giving evidence, would be able to conclude its deliberations.
If the ERU members did not give evidence, however, it was difficult to see how the committee could complete its work successfully. "And then, obviously, that gives rise to the difficulty that the Abbeylara situation has to be looked into."
If the committee could not continue, the situation would have to be reviewed, he told reporters. Asked if that raised the prospect of some other form of inquiry, he said: "The possibility of some form of inquiry looms then." What type of inquiry was "another day's work", but an alternative method would be looked at "if needs be".
Asked if that meant there would certainly be some type of inquiry if the committee could not proceed, the Minister said he could not be definitive. "We would have to look at the situation as it arose."
The Oireachtas sub-committee is investigating the fatal shooting of Mr John Carthy by members of the ERU after a siege in Abbeylara, Co Longford, on April 20th last year. The application for exemptions is being examined by the secretary to the Government, Mr Dermot McCarthy.
Mr O'Donoghue said it was not in anybody's interest that the members of the ERU be identified on television and, if they did give evidence, it should be possible to devise methods whereby they were given minimum publicity.
"I'm not saying it should be completely behind closed doors, I'm not suggesting that at all, but that the publicity would be minimised in terms of television cameras rolling in their faces for the reason that I'm deeply worried about the continued effectiveness of those members afterwards."
It would effectively mean the members would no longer be of any use to the ERU "and you would have to send very highly trained people off into more mundane duties and that would not be fair to them or to the country either", he said.
