Sir, - The Department of Justice management staff, whom this association represents, are gravely concerned about the views expressed by Mr Myers in his article in this morning's (November 1st) Irish Times.
We feel Mr Myers has grossly abused his position as a journalist by implying that the strengths of the IRA, its arms holding, and the fact that people have not been charged with three murders, can all somehow be lumped together and put down to Department of Justice officials' failure or indifference. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Mr Myers acknowledges that the Gardai have made considerable efforts to apprehend the culprits in all of these cases. It is beyond dispute that they have discovered large quantities of illegal arms, as a result of which many people are serving long prison sentences. However, by some extraordinary reasoning process, Mr Myers concludes that the inability to prefer murder charges in certain cases to date (investigations are still ongoing), simply because of lack of evidence, is a Department of Justice failure.
It is not the function of the Department of Justice either to investigate or prosecute crimes. That responsibility is fixed in law on other agencies, most particularly on the Garda Siochana.
We wonder if it is Mr Myers's view that the department should now introduce changes to the laws of evidence which would allow the State "to, make lives miserable" and institute prosecutions for murder on the grounds that people were "well known locally" and "were shunned and refused service in pubs"?
A very difficult balance has to be struck in any society between maintaining freedom and rights, and upholding public order and security. All the institutions of this State concerned with law enforcement, including this department, have exercised an excruciatingly difficult mandate over the past 20 years in confronting terrorism and drug related crime. We have, all of us, had real failures and real successes. In a democratic society with limited government resources, there will always be occasions when criticism can genuinely be laid at the door of the Department of Justice. It is, however, neither fair nor just for Mr Myers to imply a failure of will on our part in this respect. His is a most serious charge, and we emphatically reject it.
-Yours, etc.,
Branch secretary,
Association of Higher Civil
Servants,
Dartmouth Road,
Dublin 6.