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Some books have their genesis in the craziest places, but the origin of ‘A Force For Justice’ is pretty mundane. I was at home one May evening in 2013, minding the kids when I got a call from a number I didn’t recognise. Answering these kind of calls is always a gamble. It could be somebody with a story, which might require patience, filtering, more patience, interjecting with a few questions, Job’s patience, and final realisation that the person on the other end of the line has a grievance but no story. It could be somebody with a story, an average guy who just wants an issue investigated, and is offering a few facts that might lead to more. Or it could be one of those rare times when you just strike lucky with the bones of an exceptional story. Sometimes, of course, the call is just from a voice demanding to know whether you’re happy with your broadband. On this occasion, the caller made himself known. He had some serious information about the ‘ticket fixing’ scandal that had been in the news. A few weeks previously the internal Garda report was published into how thousands of speeding tickets had been quashed. The general view was that there wasn’t a whole lot to see here, except a few disgruntled cops spreading manure. The man on the line was persuasive. He maintained that there was a story that was largely being ignored. The real story was that a scandal was being covered up. It was not just, he asserted, about well-connected people getting speeding tickets fixed. It was about widespread abuse, right across the Garda. That night in May 2013 changed it all. Against my better instincts, and probably to distract me from hyperactive kids, I told the voice at the end of the line to come to my home. He arrived and we sat down. He opened a cardboard folder and showed me details of the real story behind the recently published internal Garda report. The abuse of the ticket-fixing was widespread and the proof was accessible. This man kept me up half the night. My wife arrived home at some stage and inquired whether the kids had brushed their teeth before going to bed. “What kids?”, I replied. “Do you not realise that there are people out there having their speeding tickets fixed on the basis that they were returning home to stop ‘bees attacking livestock’,that they were ‘late for a swimming lesson’”. These were examples of the excuses inserted to sort out friends and acquaintances for their speeding tickets. From there it was just a matter of following the story. That required perseverance, sleepless nights and not a little stress, the kind of stuff endured in most jobs. Along the way, I met all sorts of people who left me with a lot of humility. Mary Lynch is a taxi driver who was viciously assaulted in 2007 by a man who murdered another woman some nine months later. Her case was mishandled by the gardaí operating out of Bailieboro Co Cavan. She was denied her day in court, she believes, because she would have publicly criticised the shortcomings in the investigation. Mary showed fortitude in dealing with what had befallen her. She was initially led to believe that Maurice McCabe was behind the mishandling. After meeting him, she realised the truth. Her case forms a chapter in ‘A Force For Justice’. Many other people whom I interviewed for the book, including both serving and retired members of An Garda Síochána, wished to remain anonymous but felt compelled to tell what they knew about what McCabe had been subjected to. There are three separate aspects to the Maurice McCabe story. In the first instance, there is the shoddy and incompetent work which left the victims of crime bereft. This strand also includes the corruption of the penalty-points system which saw favoured motorists let off scot free, arguably compromising efforts to bring safety to the roads. The second strand concerns McCabe’s efforts to have these issues addressed. Time and again, he came up against the impenetrable blue wall behind which the force operates. The most shocking strand is the efforts made to silence McCabe, to ostracise him from his colleagues and the institution that was his life. There were a number of attempts to boomerang blame for cock-ups back onto him. None of these succeeded. An insight into the lengths that some appeared to be willing to go to target the whistleblower is evident in the chapter about the missing computer. This featured in the O’Higgins Commission, but was first reported in the Irish Examiner in 2014. A computer seized from a priest, who was subsequently jailed for child abuse offences, went missing in Bailieboro station. McCabe had nothing to do with the investigation into the priest or the exhibits seized. Yet, when the vanished computer became an issue, a disciplinary process into McCabe was initiated. Through his courage and with the help of a colleague who had sympathy for what was being done to him, he managed to clear his name. The O’Higgins commission ruled that McCabe: “formed the view that there was a plot against him and other members of An Garda Síochána were out to blame him. While there is no evidence of any concerted attempt to blame Sergeant McCabe it is understandable that he might connect the commencement of disciplinary proceedings with the complaints he had made a short time earlier and that he might feel aggrieved”. Delving into the story was both challenging and rewarding. In the early days, there were times when I felt I was missing something. There was little take-up for the story elsewhere in the media. Rumours abounded about McCabe’s character. The spin machines, both in the force and among large swathes of the body politic, was working overtime against him. Now and then I was riddled with doubt. The evidence was clear. McCabe’s character suggested a serious and genuine

Sinn Féin’s disowning of West Tyrone MP Barry McElduff was unprecedented. The party has always previously defended erring members in public, then quietly dropped them. I must declare an interest: I know McElduff. When my late mother was ill, his constituency office was very helpful. He ran an excellent constituency service, for people across the community. The Sinn Féin leadership’s handling of the incident indicated he was severely out of favour. Michelle O’Neill issued a statement: “I made it clear to Barry that his tweet was ill-judged, indefensible and caused hurt and pain to the victims of Kingsmill. That it falls far short of the standard expected of Sinn Féin representatives and our members”. Then President-in-waiting Mary Lou McDonald said: “I do not for a moment defend the tweet, the very crass, very stupid tweet from Barry McElduff…We do not tolerated behaviour like that”. She called it “very hurtful” and “unforgiveable”. Sinn Féin’s National Chairman, Declan Kearney said: “What has happened is absolutely inexcusable and indefensible and the party leadership is taking this matter very seriously indeed. I would like to express my own and Sinn Féin’s very sincere regret for the very understandable offence caused as result of this tweet…What happened is absolutely irresponsible. Barry McElduff has already made an unreserved apology and that was the correct thing to do in these circumstances but the reality is huge offence has been caused and I and Sinn Fein strongly disapprove of what has happened”. After those statements, whatever about the three-month suspension, McElduff had no alternative except to resign. His difficulties with Sinn Féin seem to date back some time. From 2007 to 2011 he was Chair of the Assembly’s Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure Committee. He was recognised as Sinn Féin’s most effective committee chairman. Paradoxically, he was able to work well with the Unionist representatives on the Committee. Many expected him to become the Minister if Sinn Féin took the Department. However, after the 2011 Assembly election, Carál Ní Chuilín became minister. She is recognised as able and as a safe pair of hands, but had no background in culture. It would have been useful for Sinn Féin to keep an experienced member like McElduff on the Departmental Committee. It has never been fully explained why McElduff instead moved to the Department of Employment and Learning Committee. Many observers felt he was visibly not his usual self. Earlier, McElduff had been moved aside as Westminster candidate in West Tyrone. From the late 1980s, he had been an organiser in the area. He had fought its predecessor, the Mid-Ulster seat, in 1992. Instead of him, in 1997 Sinn Féin moved in its then Vice-President Pat Doherty, who lived in north Donegal. Doherty retired last year, and McElduff took the seat. McElduff always had a reputation for being jocular, bearing out the saying: “It takes a wise man to play the fool”. David Ervine of the Progressive Unionist Party suggested he be made ‘Minister for Fun’. In recent years, the jocular McElduff came more to the fore. He published two books, one entitled ‘Keep ‘Er Lit’. For a while he contributed regularly as a comic act to the Stephen Nolan show on Radio Ulster. It is understood that not all in Sinn Féin were amused. He posted a string of videos of himself online: in one he sneaked into the DUP corridor at Stormont and bought a Snickers bar from the vending machine. He also appeared as a stand-up comedian in a club. It was he who posted the offending video, which led to his resignation, online. The DUP played the issue cleverly. They knew an all-out attack could backfire, cloud issues, and rally nationalist support round McElduff. So attack dogs like Gregory Campbell and Sammy Wilson were muzzled. Emma Little Pengelly, MP for South Belfast and the most socially liberal DUP MP, was put to the front. McElduff will no longer have a front-line role in politics. As an abstentionist MP he is a paid employee of Sinn Féin and his contract is governed by employment law. He cannot simply be sacked. Not a man who ever comfortably fitted into the background, it remains to be seen how he will find a role away from frontline politics.

Judge McCloskey steps aside, in the end Last year Mr Justice Bernard McCloskey, in the High Court, ruled the part of the Northern Ireland Ombudsman’s report that found there had been police collusion in sectarian murders at Loughinisland was unlawul. He then ruled in late January that allegations he had acted as a lawyer for one of the retired police officers mounting the legal challenge in a 2002 case against the then Ombudsman over the Omagh bombings, did not give rise to an apparent bias. On that basis he would not recuse himself from discussions about what remedy was appropriate following the quashing. He pointed out that he had in fact not acted for the retired officer, who had taken no part in the legal action in 2002. He had been an officer in the Police Association at the time but had not ‘attended at consultations with Counsel or at Court, according to Solicitors who acted for the Police Association at the time’. Confusion about this arose due to a misreport in the Irish Times picked up by the BBC the judge said, though he might have added that he had indeed acted for the Officers’ Association. In any event the judge’s reasoning then took a turn: “It is essential for the court to detach itself as far as humanly possible from the conscientious and dispassionate judicial exercise which has given rise to its substantive judgment and, further, its assessment that the test for apparent bias is not satisfied. I consider that, in the truly unique and unprecedented circumstances of this case, the interests of justice will not be furthered by a formal and final outcome which gives effect to the court’s substantive judgment and choice of remedy… Following anxious reflection, my evaluative conclusion is that our legal system will not have served the families [of the murder victims] well if they are not given the opportunity of having this case heard by a differently constituted court”. And with that he has stepped aside. He was vituperative about the Ombudman’s legal team, noting that, on five occasions, when the issue was “consciously – and no doubt carefully – considered, experienced legal representatives were unanimous in the view that recusal action was not appropriate”. He scathingly referred to “the (unmistakable) impropriety involved” in an affidavit sworn by the Ombudsman’s director of legal services “purporting to depose the Ombudsman’s state of mind and knowledge”. He will not complete his judgment as to whether the Ombudsman’s report should be formally quashed, claiming his judgment was not binding on the replacement judge and instead should be viewed as “advisory”.   Murders in County Down The impugned Ombudsman’s report into the murders at the Heights Bar, in the small community of Loughinisland, near Downpatrick, County Down concerned notorious sectarian murders of six innocent people and the wounding of many more, when members of the UVF fired their weapons into the bar while the World Cup was on the television. No one has been convicted of the murders, and the families of the victims have always suspected collusion between police and informers. It’s known that at least one of the gang was an informer. RUC Special Branch values intelligence to the point of notoriously shielding informants from the legal process. The gang was a County Down-based UVF unit who were apparently engaged in a revenge shooting. They used at least one weapon, a highpower CZ58 rifle which came in a consignment imported from the Lebanon by Ulster Resistance, the UVF and the UDA in late 1987. As documented at length last year in Village, the weapons were distributed from Armagh, but – because of police collusion – many were never found. One of the alleged gunmen has been identified in a powerful documentary, made by Oscar-winning documentary-maker Alex Gibney called ‘No Stone Unturned’. He was a local man, Ronald Hawthorn, who lived near the victims. The families’ frustration at the lack of convictions and suspicion of collusion between the police and the UVF seemed to be confirmed by the Ombudsman’s Report on the murders which was published in June 2016.   The Ombudsman’s Findings The Ombudsman found unequivocally that collusion had been a feature of the RUC investigation. He found evidence had been destroyed, leads were not followed in a timely manner, documentation was missing and a vital exhibit – the getaway car – had been destroyed. A full forensic report had been done on the car but the report argued that a piece of twine could have been the subject of new DNA tests. The Ombudsman said he was hampered by a lack of co-operation from the members of the RUC many of whom had made a decision not to speak to his investigators. The report was divided into two parts. The first, dealing with the importation of arms into Northern Ireland in late 1987, tried to trace the loyalist weaponry from the pick-up, in Belfast, to delivery and distribution, in Armagh, to the 1994 murders, in Down. The second part dealt with the police investigation into the murders in Down. The first part of the report chiefly concerned H Division of the RUC which includes much of Armagh and part of Down; the second centred on G Division where the investigation took place.   Judicial Review by RUC Officers A Judicial Review was initiated in August 2016, by two retired police officers, Thomas Ronald Hawthorne (not associated with Ronald Hawthorn named above) and Raymond White. In the course of the hearings, the Ombudsman submitted a new affidavit which answered some questions raised by the Judge. As he described it, it “contains self-evidently important information and exhibits significant documents”. All this should have happened at an earlier stage, according to the judge, who made the damaging assertion that the Ombudsman’s first affidavit was “manifestly incomplete and therefore misleading”. The Ombudsman’s new affidavit made it clear that Mr Hawthorne, the investigating officer in the case, who believed despite the fact he’d been given a cipher

Justice is not a motif found emblazoned around Donegal. Its flouting accounts for much in my home town of Bundoran and elsewhere in the county. In particular the power the late Sean McEniff had over local governance is very unsettling – through politics and wealth. He was Fianna Fáil’s longest-serving councillor and perhaps its richest man. His hotel empire extended to ten hotels countrywide including the Skylon in Dublin and the Great Southern in Bundoran.  Journalist Gemma O’Doherty and others have alleged that McEniff interfered with the Garda investigation into the death in 1977 of six-year-old Mary Boyle, but it is the power his empire wields over the slot machines that have for fifty years dominated and blighted once-elegant Bundoran that particularly concerns me here. McEniff’s empire traces its foundation to slot machines. McEniff was by far the largest slot machine operator in the town, and ignored the law: his slots would make big pay-outs, just enough to keep the key punters, most of them poor or old – or both, hooked. In 2009 Bundoran Town Council adopted a submission from the slot-machine operators – McEniff being the largest – to the Department of Justice – as its own submission. The submission had been adopted by the Council on the same day at a special meeting which had only three Councillors present. The quorum for any meeting was four Councillors to be present, though nobody called halt. The submission said Bundoran’s 1,000 machines were “an integral part of the overall Bundoran product, both on and off the season, and a key reason why visitors continue to be attracted to the town”. Growing up in Bundoran, I remember from a young age the dangers of gaming machines. A friend of my mother came down from the North on the bus with her wages on a Friday and rushed up to play gaming machines in the town. By Sunday evening she had to ask my mum for money to get back home, after losing everything. The 2008 Department of Justice report on ‘Regulating Gaming in Ireland’ states “The Committee is aware of the type of gaming machine which accepts €500 notes. The Act of 1956 provides a maximum stake in gaming machines of 6d and a maximum prize of 10 shillings. The Act is not being enforced and that brings the law into disrepute”. The Garda Síochána, the Revenue and the Council have long since abjured responsibility for enforcing the gaming laws. A 1985 ‘Today Tonight’ programme on RTÉ focused on Law and Order in South Donegal, particularly Seán McEniff’s gaming. Donegal County Council sued RTÉ for defamation for what it said about the inappropriate relationship between Donegal [County] Council and the Garda but a legal settlement saw it agree to remove the programme, on the steps of the High Court. One of the last convictions for illegal gaming in Bundoran was in 2000 after Charlie Bird did the exposé on illegal gaming here. The solicitor for McEniffs Bundoran Limited said to the Judge at the time that “Charlie Bird should be prosecuted” as he had played an illegal gaming machine. Poor Sean died last year but his empire remains in the family. I recently objected in the District Court to renewal of the gaming licence to McEniffs Bundoran Limited. The first Judge and McEniffs’ solicitor removed themselves from the case, the solicitor coming off record after I raised a concern of conflict of interest. I objected as a member of the Public, though I have had my travails with Sean McEniff when I was Bundoran’s traffic warden. When I objected that gaming machines accept notes while the 1956 Act maximum is 20 cent, the solicitor for the McEniffs Gerry McGovern did not deny it. Instead he just noted that Revenue issued Certificates and that gardaí and fire officers had no objections. “If there was a difficulty, the gardaí and revenue wouldn’t be long moving in”, he said. But that is the core of the problem. As to my objection that there were too many machines in Bundoran, Judge Denis McLoughlin said that would only be valid in case of a new application. McGovern said it was an application that had been renewed umpteen times and hadn’t been changed. And in Donegal it seems that is the main thing. The Revenue’s webpage states that it up to the District Court to “limit the amount of the stakes and prizes and limiting the number of gaming machines”. But Judge McLoughlin was not interested. I have been before the District, Circuit and High Courts on occasion, always representing myself. In 2012 in Donegal Circuit Court, Judge Keenan Johnston highlighted that as a lay litigant “She`d be entering the Court with one hand tied behind her back”. The dysfunctionality of Donegal from policing to planning to electoral fraud to unemployment to paedophila is now well documented. Sometimes you feel fighting for justice here leaves you very much alone.  By Patricia McCafferty