The following is the text of the statement issued yesterday by the Department of Justice:
JUSTICE Minister, Nora Owen informed, the Dail today that she had been advised by the Garda authorities that they have now completed their inquiries into the circumstances surrounding a recent extradition application which had been the subject of earlier Dail questions and media coverage.
Minister Gwen informed the Dail that it had been established that an original warrant had in fact been received by the Garda Siochana from the UK authorities on 12th April 1996 but that a copy of the warrant rather than the original had been endorsed for execution by the Gardai and subsequently presented to the Court. An extensive search had failed to locate the original warrant. The Garda authorities had concluded that the original warrant had been mislaid by the Gardai and that the only explanation was that the original warrant had been destroyed accidentally when copies of the warrant were being made.
Because the photocopies of the original documents were of such high quality, it was not realised that the original warrant was missing until the court hearing on 13 April 1996".
The Minister indicated that "responsibility for ensuring that the original documents transmitted by the requesting country seeking the extradition of a person, are available to the courts, rests with the Garda authorities.
"Extradition procedures involve the combined efforts of a number of agencies both here and in the requesting country. A high degree of co-ordination is required between these agencies. In the present case, the application arrived with the Garda Siochana at very short notice and it was necessary to process it within a very narrow time-frame - in effect within a matter of hours of the court hearing.
"This is the first time that an error of this sort has occurred. In general, extradition arrangements between the United Kingdom and Ireland work well. This is evident from the most recent report on the operation of Part III of the Extradition Act 1965 which was laid before the House in December last. The report, which is in respect of the year 1994, records that 15 persons were extradited in 1994, seven to England and eight to Northern Ireland."
The Minister assured the Dail that "the necessary lessons will be drawn from the difficulties experienced on this occasion. The Garda authorities are reviewing the procedures involved in processing the documents required in extradition cases. They will introduce any safeguards needed to ensure that the type of error they made on this occasion will not recur."
Mrs Owen indicated that her Department and the Attorney General's office would take part in the review of procedures already underway. She concluded by informing the House that, having received the final report from the Garda Siochana, she was satisfied that it was necessary to liaise with all the agencies that were involved in the proceedings in both jurisdictions in order to establish the full facts.
The Minister also indicated that the failure of the extradition proceedings in Court on 13 April, 1996 did not preclude a further application being made for the extradition of the person in question, who is now in custody, here, in connection with another matter.