Profile: Patrick MacEntee is seen as a fearless professional whose contribution to the justice system exemplifies the best of the Bar, writes Carol Coulter, Legal Affairs Correspondent.
If anyone can dig up evidence on what happened to the investigation into the Dublin and Monaghan bombings, Patrick (Paddy) MacEntee can. The doyen of the Irish bar for 30 years, his name has been associated with almost every high-profile criminal case during that time. His reputation is now such that his mere appearance for the prosecution in a case is a sign that the accused is in big trouble. It is rumoured that in certain major cases powerful parties engage him - not to appear, but to ensure he does not work for the other side.
His clients range from the most marginalised and despised to the most successful. He defended triple murderer Brendan O'Donnell, who had killed Imelda Riney, her son Liam and Fr Joe Walsh, and he also acted for Ryanair chief executive Michael O'Leary when he was charged with dangerous driving. Recently, he successfully defended Judge Brian Curtin against the charge of possessing child pornography.
MacEntee's reputation has been built on a string of cases in the 1970s and 1980s, especially in the Special Criminal Court, where the State felt it was fighting a war against subversion and used all its weapons in the criminal justice arsenal to fight that war. While many of his IRA clients lost their cases, MacEntee succeeded in establishing that the Garda often abused its powers in pursuit of convictions.
Yet when members of the force were facing allegations of mistreating suspects in the 1980s they turned to him, and he then represented them with the same rigour he had previously cross-examined their colleagues. They were reported as saying their consultations with their counsel were more gruelling than the case itself.
The list of prominent cases in which he has appeared would cover many pages, but a selection would include successfully fighting the extradition of Australian alleged criminal Robert Trimbole; defending the murderer of Nurse Bridie Gargan, Malcolm Macarthur; defending those accused of the murder of Lord Mountbatten; those implicated in the Harry Kirkpatrick supergrass trials in Northern Ireland; John Gallagher, who killed his girlfriend and her mother in Sligo; Catherine Nevin; Philip Sheedy (after his early release caused a judicial crisis); and former Dublin assistant city and county manager George Redmond.
While he is mostly associated with criminal trials, he has also acted in high-profile libel trials, including that of Proinsias De Rossa against Independent Newspapers.
He was born on November 4th, 1936, in Monaghan, one of three children of a dentist. His father was not politically active, but his grandfather had been interned by the British in Ballykinler and was later active in Cumann na nGaedheal. He attended the local Christian Brothers' school and the Diocesan Seminary which, despite its name, was an ordinary secondary school. From there he went to UCD and qualified as a barrister in the King's Inns. In college his interests were more cultural than legal, and he was very active in Dramsoc. At the time his colleagues there included Frank Kelly, Fergus and Rosaleen Linehan and Des Keogh, among others who were to go on to that other stage - the Bar. MacEntee retains his enthusiasm for the stage, and for opera.
After his call to the Bar in 1960 he went to work on the Northern circuit, briefed by local solicitors he would already have known. When the Northern conflict erupted in the early 1970s it was hardly surprising many of those arrested in connection with IRA activity were from the Northern counties and sought the help of local solicitors. MacEntee's career in the Special Criminal Court was born.
There he constantly tested the limits of Garda power. Again and again he found loopholes in the investigation and prosecution process that led to the acquittal of his clients. He became a senior counsel in 1975, and was called to the Northern Ireland Inner Bar in 1985.
HE ALSO CAMPAIGNED for human rights in a broader arena. In 1976 he attended as an observer for the International Commission of Jurists at a trial of political activists in Namibia, then under South African control. On his return he delivered a scathing report on the trial, which had condemned two of the men to death. He was also a regular speaker at public meetings of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties.
He was a member of the Bar Council for a long time, and in 1982 he was elected its chairman, serving in that capacity for a number of years. He is deeply committed to the idea of an independent Bar, with all its members potentially available to anyone in need of effective representation, through the offices of the most humble local solicitor. His own practice exemplifies this principle.
The bulk of his work has always been done on legal aid, so he is not, by the inflated standards of the Bar, a big earner. No one doubts that he could multiply his income if he chose to abandon criminal work for the more lucrative commercial area.
However, he has never had any interest in doing so, preferring to pursue his personal commitment to law and the justice system by defending what many people regard as indefensible. In his summing-up in the Brendan O'Donnell murder trial he told the jury that it was "the sick, unattractive, nasty, badly damaged" who most needed justice. "The Brendan O'Donnells of this world are the ones who test the system," he added.
MacEntee holds strongly to the view that if those accused of the most reprehensible acts cannot be sure of a fair trial and the best possible defence, then there is no justice system at all. Justice cannot be there only for people of whom society approves. It is no accident that he has advised the Irish hierarchy in relation to priests accused of abusing children.
"His contribution is an example of the best of the Bar," says a leading criminal solicitor. "If there was a crisis it didn't matter what time of the day or night you rang him. This was particularly relevant when people were in difficult situations in police stations. He was always available, and always available under the criminal legal aid scheme. His ready availability to criminal solicitors all over the country was one of the key factors in ensuring that the criminal legal aid system worked pretty well."
A fellow senior counsel says: "He is a man of huge humour but huge seriousness in relation to significant issues that have arisen over the years in relation to the courts and human rights."
"He is totally objective, a true professional," says another. "The political hue or background of his clients is irrelevant. He is fearless. He is very, very incisive and will pursue a point that may not be obvious but can be crucial."
Despite - or perhaps because of - his attachment to fundamental principles of justice, he does not socialise unduly with other lawyers, and he is as likely to be found in the company of people involved in the arts or old friends from outside the legal or arts worlds.
He eschews most of the trappings of the successful barrister, such as the big Victorian redbrick house and the top-of-the-range German or Swedish car, living in a modern mews in Rathmines, full of books and paintings, with a garden of which he is very proud. For years he drove an old Mazda 323. He can be scathing about the pretensions, snobberies and shortcomings of some of his colleagues, and is a witty raconteur.
He is a Francophile and a frequent visitor to Paris, where he is chairman of the board of the Centre Culturel Irlandais - the body established by the Irish government in co-operation with a French charity to run what was formerly the Irish College in Paris.
The inquiry to which he was appointed this week is the first of its kind and will not take place in public. There is little doubt that he will prepare a very thorough report, and produce it to meet the six-month deadline.
"He pays great attention to detail," says one of the solicitors who works with him. "Behind every good cross- examination there's a lot of preparation. He always prepared a case very thoroughly. He will do this new inquiry fairly and he will certainly do it thoroughly."