If the Taoiseach allows Jerry McCabe's killers to walk free it will be because it is politically expedient, writes P.J. Stone
An Garda Síochána requires the support of the Irish people to ensure the law of the State can be maintained and upheld. Equally, it relies on the support and protection of the State in its ability to conduct its business.
One of the great protections gardaí have enjoyed since the foundation of the State has been the support of government in respect of the taking of the life of a police officer in the course of his or her duties.
This has been enshrined in legislation introduced by Ray Burke, as a Fianna Fáil minister for justice, when he quite rightly removed capital punishment from our statute books but replaced it with mandatory sentences for those who would take the life of a member of An Garda Síochána or the Prison Service or a member of government.
The legislature at the time went even further, for the first time legislating for a crime of attempted murder of a member of an Garda Síochána which carries a mandatory 25-year jail term.
Notwithstanding the fact the killers of Jerry McCabe have not been convicted of capital murder, one would not expect that the State having set out a position - detailed emphatically to gardaí and the McCabe family - that these killers would not be released, has now effectively reneged on the very principle that gardaí could expect the protection of the State. From that point of view, what we are now witnessing is the denigration of a garda's life for political ends.
Mr Ahern and others will rue the day they succumbed to blackmail in surrendering up killers of a garda ostensibly for the sake of peace on this island.
Garda members have to ask themselves, as they go about their duty, expecting the protection of the State and of legislation, do those commitments and safeguards mean anything now or in the future?
It comes as no surprise that this so-called deal agreed by government was leaked to the media on the very weekend that political parties in the Republic were putting up posters for the forthcoming elections here next month.
That the grief of the family of Jerry McCabe could be used as a political football in furthering the electoral aims of one political party is a despicable act of political skulduggery that should leave any of its candidates seeking election by Irish voters in an untenable position.
There is a very simple principle at work here and this has to be recognised by Sinn Féin and the IRA who disowned these people in the aftermath of this killing. This was an unprecedented act of thuggery, involving, quite simply, people out for their own ends in terms of getting money. It had nothing to do with the so-called ideals of the IRA or the struggle for a united Ireland. The sooner people realise that the people involved in the killing of Jerry McCabe were nothing but bandits who had no regard for human life, the better for us all.
In the aftermath of the killing, the IRA denied its members were involved and subsequently, in its own language of arrogance, reworded their position to say that if any of their members were involved then it was not "authorised". Clearly, what was being said was that the people involved were acting as mavericks and operating in a purely criminal capacity.
While the argument over what does and doesn't constitute a criminal act under the Belfast Agreement is debatable, this assertion so soon after Jerry McCabe's killing casts this operation by these killers outside of their own warped parameters and should therefore be dealt with on exclusively criminal grounds.
The GRA (Garda Representative Association), and indeed the McCabe family or anybody else, do not wish to be singled out for hindering the peace process. But the reality is we have people in this country who, by the very nature of what they do, terrorise and threaten our democracy. We cannot live our lives always afraid of what these people are likely to do. The Garda Síochána have never shirked from this belief in the past three decades of terrorist slaughter on this island, nor do they intend to start now.
The peace process is being held up to ridicule by the fact that it hinges on the Government's willingness to release those who would slay a person in cold blood for nothing other than cold, hard cash. These were not freedom fighters nor anything like it but thugs and criminals and should be treated as such.
These killers undertook that raid on the post office in Adare because - and Garda intelligence has supported this - one of the killers was at the time renovating his house and needed money to finance the project. With no ceasefire in place, this was an opportunist crime, and it was decided to go for the relatively small amount of money that was in that truck at the time.
This is the sad, cold reality of the death of Jerry McCabe. He died so somebody under the cover of so-called Irish republicanism could enrich themselves and feather their own nest.
1996 was a dark year in this country for high-profile killings. In June of that year Veronica Guerin, who attended Jerry McCabe's funeral, was murdered in cold blood by members of a violent Dublin gang.
If Jerry McCabe's killers are released does this mean that if the violent Dublin gangs of today said they were going to give up their drug-dealing, murdering and racketeering ways those arrested and jailed in connection with Veronica Guerin's murder and indeed any other related murder would be set free?
We now have a Taoiseach who was instrumental in ensuring the removal of one of his TDs from the Fianna Fáil organisation because of transgressions she committed even before she was an elected representative. He claimed publicly that the need for this harsh decision was based on the need for the law of the land to be upheld and the Fianna Fáil party had to be seen to be upholding the law.
And yet, this very same Taoiseach is quite prepared to allow cold-blooded killers to walk free from jail, even though properly convicted and sentenced by the courts of this land, because it is politically expedient.
God help us all if this is the new Ireland we strive for.
• P.J. Stone is general secretary of the Garda Representative Association