The killing of John Carthy was an extraordinary incident. He took himself hostage in his family home and spent over 24 hours incarcerated there before finally leaving through his front door. Within minutes, he was mortally wounded by specially trained gardai.
On Tuesday, his sister Marie faced her first press conference with dignity and courage when she called for a "searching, independent inquiry" into his killing. On Wednesday, John O'Donoghue, Minister for Justice, refused her request but agreed to make public the report now being prepared by Chief Supt Adrian Culligan. There will be further opportunity to examine the facts at the coroner's inquest.
What is disturbing about this tragedy are the queries it raises about the place, care and understanding of the chronically depressed person in the community. Close communities like Abbeylara do try to protect their own in a neighbourly way, as their grief testifies.
The State has failed them, as it has failed other vulnerable citizens, not necessarily by design but by a habitual pattern of inter-agency neglect. Carthy's killing shows how deadly the consequences of that pattern have become.
Carthy was not a well man. Left fatherless at 17, the boy who had already been bullied at school was sometimes the butt of jokes in the macho environments to which his work as a plasterer brought him. When confronted with authority previously, represented by a conflict with an employer, he appears to have found the encounter most difficult.
PERHAPS he needed to prove himself: certainly, he clung to his double-barrell shotgun in the symbolic way a child clings to a teddy bear, having successfully resisted previous attempts by local gardai to confiscate it permanently.
Vulnerable to even ordinary stresses because of his history of mental illness, John Carthy was facing what is rated the second most stressful life experience, moving house. He was feeling unwell that morning and did not go to work.
The sight of up to 60 uniformed men outside your house would intimidate the sanest citizen. Carthy responded to it as to
a serious threat and fired randomly though his windows. For over 24 hours he stayed awake, locked up with his gun and his terror. Outside, the Garda negotiator stayed awake with him. A psychiatrist was on hand.
Carthy did not ask for a plane to fly him to Cuba. He wanted cigarettes, just a few fags. The packet could have been transported to him on a robot or in other hands-off ways. It was not.
Siege situations operate on the basis that both sides have a working knowledge of basic rules of engagement. Usually a terrorist or other criminal is involved. Carthy was neither. Exhausted, fearful and deprived of nicotine, he misunderstood the rules by failing to give notice he was leaving his own house, and failing to drop the gun.
The training of the Emergency Response Unit that surrounded the Carthy home prepares them for the most dangerous situations and opponents. Theirs are skills that criminals like Dessie O'Hare and various armed robbers, as well as members of the "Real IRA", have encountered to their cost. Such men understand the risks and the rules from the start.
Carthy could not. He did not engage in a criminal act until he was surrounded by armed gardai, as far as we know. With a brain tortured by illness, fear, lack of sleep and lack of nicotine, he may have felt under attack. It is easy to suggest that John Carthy had a death wish and might otherwise have taken his own life, as so many vulnerable young men do. Too easy - he had the opportunity, and he chose not to do so.
No precedent exists for a killing of this kind. John Carthy had no record of violence towards others and therefore could not be regarded as a potential criminal. Garda structures, however, had little option but to view him in this way. Individual gardai are devastated by the outcome at Abbeylara. None could have envisaged facing a man like him. Trained to deal with terrorists, they appear to have lacked procedures to deal with a man who was terrorised.
The Culligan investigation will determine whether the Garda operation was conducted according to prescribed procedures, which deserve scrutiny. Recommendations for change are so far not a priority in its remit. The inquest will determine the facts of, not the responsibility for, Carthy's death. Neither is authorised or competent to comment further.
THERE is every reason to believe the Culligan report and the inquest will be conducted properly. But that does not negate the need for an independent inquiry. Neither forum can service fully the range of questions arising in the public interest, and for the bereaved family and community. They lack the broad range of competencies and the cohesiveness to do so.
The question demanded in the public interest is wider than either investigation allows. It is bigger than what happened over a long night and day at Abbeylara, Co Longford. It merits deeper probing than the issue of expanding Garda artillery to include the use of plastic bullets. Its remit covers areas of responsibility from the Minister for Justice to the Ministers for Health and for the Environment.
How could we have helped him and his community better? What do we need to learn about the breadth and cohesiveness of public services so as to save another John Carthy from being swept up into the same fatal pattern?
Marie Carthy said her brother had learned to live with his depression, like many other people all over the world. The problem is that the world has not yet learned how to live with them.
mruane@irish-times.ie