NAMES In The Headlines

Do you know who Catherine Pierce is? 

Unless you work in law, the government or the media then probably not. Yet, she is one of the most powerful people in this country. Pierce is the current Director of Public Prosecutions. But there is nothing “public” about her profile or about how her office operates. Pierce rarely makes public statements and is under no obligation to justify her decisions as to whether or not she intends to prosecute someone. What happens if someone who should be prosecuted is not? Nothing. What happens when someone who should not be prosecuted is? Nothing. Because the Director of Public Prosecutions, commonly known as the DPP, is completely independent. There is no oversight. There is no transparency. Despite the fact that we have an Attorney General (AG) the AG cannot interfere in the decisions of the DPP. This is unlike other countries where decisions can be overturned, where transparency is in place and where the public who pay for this facility can be satisfied of its performance.

The office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) was established by law under the Prosecution of Offences Act, 1974.  Its main duty is to enforce the criminal law in the courts on behalf of the People of Ireland. But, how well does it do this?

The original powers of prosecution were vested with the Attorney General of Ireland under the Ministers and Secretaries Act 1924. Article 30.3 of the Constitution of Ireland provides that:

“All crimes and offences prosecuted in any court constituted under Article 34 of this Constitution other than a court of summary jurisdiction shall be prosecuted in the name of the People and at the suit of the Attorney General or some other person authorised in accordance with law to act for that purpose.”

The Prosecution of Offences Act 1974 delegated the functions of the Attorney General to the Office of the Director of Prosecutions. The Act was introduced to Dáil Éireann by the Government of the 20th Dáil. It was introduced by John M. Kelly, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Taoiseach Liam Cosgrave, with the stated dual aim of creating an impartial agency and to refocus the Office of the Attorney General to the provision of legal advice to the government.  The independence of the DPP was expressly stipulated in the 1974 Act and though the act provides that the DPP shall consult together from time to time, it imposes no restrictions on the independence of the DPP nor makes them accountable to the Attorney General. 

The decision of the DPP not to institute proceedings is not reviewable.

Eamonn Barnes was the first DPP appointed in 1974. He held the office for a quarter of a century. During that period most of his legal indiscretions were covered up, but not all. Barnes ran the office like Edgar J Hoover ran the FBI, holding files on many legal, political and business figures. Some of his actions were “unfortunate”, “erroneous”, “negligent,” or “a serious abuse of power” depending on who you listen to. But there are a number of decisions that are unambiguously an abuse of power. Cases that spring to mind include 

· Nora Wall

· Malcolm Mc Arthur

· Ian Bailey

· Brian Curtin

One of these cases transcended later DPPs. When Barnes decided not to prosecute Ian Bailey who was convicted in France of the murder of Sophie Toscan du Plantier, his erroneous decision was endorsed by his predecessors James Hamilton and Claire Loftus. It remains to be seen if the current DPP, Catherine Pierce, has the integrity to admits these mistakes and confirm that Bailey should have been charged. The file is currently in her office. But to admit that Bailey should have been charged would be tantamount to a criticism of her former colleagues. And, just how likely is that? Seriously? 

The DPP is not obliged to make public their decision not to prosecute a particular case. This is a fundamental flaw in the system which needs to be changed and changed urgently. The legal academic Professor Dermot Walsh once stated in 2004 when commenting on the power of the DPP: "It's a huge power to put in the hands of one individual. He does not have to give reasons for this important subjective decision he makes. The whole movement in society is towards giving reasons when the rights of persons are affected. There is not more important decision taken than the one to prosecute or not to prosecute a person." 

In the notorious case of convicted murderer Ian Bailey the DPP was forced by Court Order to make public the reasons why Bailey should not be charged in Ireland. No one in the DPPs office expected the Report to be made public. This seriously flawed report was written by an in-house solicitor Robert Sheehan and personally approved by the DPP himself Eamonn Barnes. When the Report was made public the media were aghast at how poorly written, biased and ill-conceived the report was. One senior journalist called it a “pathetic piece of absolute nonsense” and stated that if this is how the office of the DPP make their decisions then it’s time to take away their independence. The Report and comment on it is on this site.

FORMER AND CURRENT DIRECTORS

Eamonn Barnes (1974-1999)

James Hamilton (1999-2011)

Claire Loftus (2011-2021)

Catherine Pierce (2021-

EAMONN BARNES (1974-1999)

Barnes was the first person to be appointed Director. He exercised a wrench-like control over his department. All important and prominent decisions were passed through him and his decision was final. A former employee admitted that it was not common for reports to be re-written to incorporate his views as to why prosecutions should not be made.

Eamonn Barnes DPP (1974-1999)

Eamonn Barnes was born in 1934, the son of John and Bridget Barnes, of Ballymote, Co Sligo. His parents were national school teachers. He was educated at Ballymote National School, and later the Franciscan College, Multyfarnham; St Nathy's College, Ballaghaderreen; and later King's Inns Dublin and University College Dublin. In 1958, he was called to the bar. When his legal career as a barrister did not take off Barnes joined the Attorney General’s office in 1966. In 1974 he was controversially appointed as Director. It was alleged in the Dáil by Desmond O’Malley T.D. that the first preference of the board of eminences charged to recommend suitable candidates had not been Barnes but a senior counsel with considerable prosecuting experience identified with Fianna Fáil. According to an Obituary in the Irish Times “This set the stage for the fierce manner in which, from the start, Barnes asserted his independence, glorying that, unlike his counterpart in England, he was not accountable to the attorney general.” Barnes ruled like an autocrat.” According to the Irish Times, judges who criticised his decisions to prosecute in cases before them were answered roundly. He sued several newspapers who published matter impugning his independence and recovered substantial damages from the Irish Press when they reported a critical statement by Fianna Fáil TD Michael Woods. Barnes was given a car and a chauffeur. He was known to attend any embassy party that invited him where he was known to recount the importance of his office and his independence. Veteran journalist Kevin Myers once wrote about him: "No senior officer of the law could be as unpretentious".

One of the first scandals involved the case of Malcolm McArthur. In the notorious double murder by McArthur, who was apprehended in the apartment of his friend the then Attorney General, Patrick Connolly, Barnes decided to drop a second murder charge against McArthur for the murder of Edenderry farmer Donal Dunne in exchange for a guilty plea to the murder of Dublin nurse Bridie Gargan. This decision was widely criticised, and rightly so. Because the decision was wrong. This led to a petition of 10,000 signatures to ensure MacArthur would be tried for his murder. This was unsuccessful and MacArthur received a life sentence for just one murder. This showed the patent arrogance of Barnes as DPP or as one journalist called it “his pig-headedness.”

In 1995 it was revealed that a large majority of child abuse cases referred to him were not prosecuted.

He refused ever to give reasons for not prosecuting, except to gardaí involved, arguing that if he gave reasons in one case he would have to give them in all, and the reason given could reflect unfairly on a person not charged or on a possible witness. According to the Irish Times “his stance smacked of a lack of accountability. Other scandalous decisions by him include the wrongly accused nun Nora Wall, the paedophile Judge Brian Curtin, the convicted murderer Ian Bailey and the disgraced Roman Catholic Bishop Eamon Casey.

The Nora Wall Scandal

Nora Wall (Sister Dominic) was born in 1948 and is a former Irish sister of the Sisters of Mercy. In June 1999 she was wrongfully convicted of rape. She served four days of a life sentence in July 1999, before her conviction was quashed. She was officially declared the victim of a miscarriage of justice in December 2005. The wrongful conviction was based on false allegations by two women in their 20s, Regina Walsh (born 978) and Patricia Phelan (born 1973). Wall was the first woman in the history of the Irish State to be convicted of rape, the first person to receive a life sentence for rape and the only person in the history of the state to be convicted on repressed memory evidence. Wall left the congregation of the Sisters of Mercy in 1994. In 1996, she worked in a St. Vincent de Paul shelter for homeless men. In October 1996, she was arrested in Dublin and questioned about allegations made by Regina Walsh, whom she had cared for from the age of eight. Walsh alleged that Pablo (Paul) McCabe had raped her, while Wall held her legs, on the occasion of her twelfth birthday on 8 January 1990. She also claimed that Wall had sexually abused her on numerous occasions. Wall was not questioned then or subsequently on a second allegation: that she had assisted McCabe in raping Walsh in a virtually identical way two years previously. This latter charge, on which neither she nor McCabe was questioned, was the one on which they would subsequently be found guilty. It was not until May 1997 that Wall was finally charged. 

Eamonn Barnes was the DPP at the time.

Pablo (Paul) McCabe made a statement concerning the night of Regina Walsh's 12th birthday party on 8 January 1990. The alleged rape on 8 January 1990 was the only charge on which McCabe was questioned. Like Nora Wall, he was never questioned on the second allegation that he had also raped Regina Walsh two years previously in 1987 or 1988, again with Wall present. In fact, neither McCabe's nor Wall's defence teams received notification of this second charge until 28 May 1999, only six days before hearings began, and two years after they were initially charged.

Eamonn Barnes was the DPP at this time.

After he was released after questioning, it emerged that it would have been impossible for McCabe to have been in Cappoquin on 8 January. He was living in a Dublin hostel from 7 January and his movements were fully recorded until he was committed to Mountjoy prison on 10 January. The Gardaí then returned to the alleged victim, Regina Walsh, and put it to her that McCabe could not have been in Cappoquin on 8 January. On 5 November 1996, she "corrected" her statement to state that it was not the day of her 12th birthday, but of the celebration of her 12th birthday some days before or after that date, that the alleged assault took place. At the trial, witnesses were produced to show that there was no man present at the birthday party. But both McCabe and Wall were convicted of rape. They were acquitted of a second count of raping the same child in 1990. The second major charge against the two accused was that they had raped Regina Walsh in on 8 January 1990 on the girl's 12th birthday. The outcome was that the jury found the two accused innocent on that rape charge but convicted them on the other—the alleged rape that took place at least two years prior to the birthday party. (Wall was vilified by the Sunday World but later received €175,000 damages for libel.)

On 17 June, a week after the rape convictions, Regina Walsh gave an interview to journalist Barry O'Keefe of The Star newspaper claiming that she had also been raped by a "black man in Leicester Square" in London. Her defence team were unaware of this alleged rape. The Star inexplicably published the names of Walsh and her "witness" Patricia Phelan for the first time. A Kilkenny businessman read the newspaper and recognised Phelan as the woman who had made a false rape allegation against him. He informed the gardaí who informed the Defence. Despite this Judge Paul Carney proceeded to sentence Wall to life imprisonment and McCabe to 12 years imprisonment. 

Astonishingly, four days later on 27 July 1999, the Court of Criminal Appeal quashed the convictions of the two accused. Both were granted bail and it was stated that the question of a possible re-trial would be considered subsequently. The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) applied to have the previous week's convictions set aside, telling the court that one witness had been called to give evidence at the trial inadvertently, despite a decision of the DPP that this person should not be called. Veteran journalist Kevin Myers described the trial as a witch hunt while the Sisters of Mercy were quick to condemn their former member and refused to apologise after the collapse of the case against the two accused. Barnes retired as DPP. 

The scandal continues under the directorship of the new DPP James Hamilton.

JAMES HAMILTON (1999-2011)

James Hamilton (born 20 March 1949) is an Irish barrister and administrator who served as the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) at the Republic of Ireland's Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions from 1999 to 2011. In September 2010, Hamilton was elected President of the International Association of Prosecutors, succeeding Francois Falletti. Before becoming Director of Public Prosecutions, Hamilton was a practising barrister and was head of the office of the Attorney General of Ireland.

James Hamilton DPP (1999-2011)

The Nora Wall Scandal under Hamilton

Four months after the convictions of Nora Wall and Pablo (Paul) McCabe were quashed the newly appointed DPP James Hamilton, decided in his wisdom, to seek a retrial in the case. 

In mid-November he released to the media a detailed six-page report dated 1 October, addressed to the attorney general, Michael McDowell, SC, which gave an account of the mistakes, failures and omissions in the offices of the DPP and Chief State Solicitor and in the conduct of the case. This farce overseen by the previous DPP, Eamonn Barnes, resulted in a witness for the prosecution being called against the wishes of the DPP. Such was the criticism of the case that this was the first time a  DPP had sought to explained himself in a specific case in the office's 25-year history. At the Court of Criminal Appeal on 22 November 1999, the DPP accepted "fully and ungrudgingly" that former nun Wall and McCabe are entitled to be presumed innocent of all charges brought against them. At the court hearing a lawyer for the DPP said he "very much regrets the errors which occurred in relation to the handling of this case by the prosecution" which led to the successful appeal.

The DPP's statement outlined the sequence of events from the decision to prosecute on 24 April 1997 up to their release by the Court of Criminal Appeal, initially on bail, in July just days after they had been sentenced to life and 12 years respectively. It explained how the prosecution came to call Patricia Phelan as a witness, despite an earlier direction by the DPP made in April 1997 that she should not be called. Denis Vaughan Buckley SC, for the DPP, read a prepared statement. He said the DPP had considered the transcript of evidence that was given at the trial together with additional information obtained by the Gardaí and had then concluded that it would not be proper to proceed with his application for a retrial. On 1 December 2005 the Court of Criminal Appeal finally certified that Wall had been the victim of a miscarriage of justice. The Court of Criminal Appeal found that not only had there been a miscarriage of justice but there had also been a serious breakdown in communications between the offices of the Director of Public Prosecutions, the Chief State Solicitor, the Garda Síochána (police) and prosecuting counsel.

On 6 September 1999, the Irish Independent reported the views of the Dáil opposition party Justice spokesman Jim Higgins: “The Director of Public Prosecutions faced a barrage of criticism for its handling of the high profile case. Fine Gael's justice spokesman Jim Higgins said it was dealt with sloppily the prosecution pursued the case "with vigour and determination" but on the day after the convictions the DPP moved to have them quashed. "There are two issues here," said Mr Higgins. "The first is how a witness could have been called to give evidence against the expressed wishes of the DPP. The other is the non-disclosure of evidence. It is common law principle that all material in possession of the prosecution must be handed over to the defence, even if it is damaging to the prosecution's case. We have to investigate whether that evidence was withheld deliberately or inadvertently."

Hamilton hit the headlines again in the failed prosecution of paedophile Judge Brian Curtin.

The Brian Curtin Scandal

It has been called the biggest judicial scandal in the history of the State. On a July night in 1999 Brian Curtin, a Judge of the Circuit Court, had been sitting in front of his IBM computer doing what he liked best, drinking and downloading. He hit a website called L********, and then clicked on to a page that read: ¨I WARN YOU, YOU‘RE ENTERING THE MOST CONTROVERSIAL SITE ON THE WEB: No legal content! phedophilias (sic). All sick, all sex maniacs! CLICK HERE TO ENTER L*****'S WORLD.¨ At 7am on the morning of the 12th July 1999, Curtin entered the details of his credit card to view the material. It was explicit images of sexual conduct between adults and children, graphic pictures of pre-pubescent children, boys under the age of eight of nine and girls under 12. It cost him $29.95 to download 280 images from L*****'s World. Those who saw the pictures described them as “vile and disgusting.” Interpol were already investigating this site when they came across Curtin’s details. They had no idea he was an Irish Judge. He had just been appointed. Interpol’s investigation, called Operation Amethyst, resulted in the Gardai being supplied with details of Irish subscribers to US websites offering images of child pornography for sale. One of the persons from this jurisdiction so named was a Brian Curtin, 35 Ashe Street, Tralee, County Kerry. Subsequent inquiries indicated that this person was Brian Curtin, Judge of the Circuit Court, with a home address of 24 Ard na Lí, Tralee, County Kerry. A warrant to search Judge Curtin’s home under section 7 of the Child Trafficking and Pornography Act 1998 issued from the District Court on foot of an application by a member of the Garda Síochána on 20 May 2002,

On May 27, 2002 a team of detectives arrived at his house in Tralee, County Kerry, where he lived alone, with a search warrant. Detectives seized his computer with the diaries and notebooks nearby. One of the notebooks had details of internet chatrooms, the codes to enter them, the false name used by Curtin, and lurid accounts in the judge's longhand of the conversations he had conducted and the name of the person with whom he had communicated. A graphic picture of a young man was glued on to the inside cover of the book. (Judge Curtin never sat on the bench of the Circuit Court again, although he continued to draw his annual salary of €153,000 until his resignation in November 2006.)

An investigation file was submitted to the Director of Public Prosecutions by the Garda authorities in October 2002. The Director of Public Prosecutions instructed that Judge Curtin be prosecuted for knowingly having in his possession child pornography contrary to section 6 of the Child Trafficking and Pornography Act 1998,

Curtin’s trial commenced on 20 April 2004 at Tralee Circuit Court. On the 23 April 2004 Curtin was found not guilty of that charge. No evidence was given because in the Circuit Criminal Court, Judge Moran, determined that the warrant was ineffective when executed. Judge Carroll Moran held that the prosecution knew, or ought to have known, that its evidence would be inadmissible. He said: “The law is crystal clear”, the issue could not be simpler, and it was wrong for the prosecution to bring this case to trial.”

Detective Inspector Tom Dixon told the court in Tralee that Judge Curtin first came to the attention of the gardaí when US police authorities and Interpol supplied his name, address and credit card details as part of an international investigation into child pornography. This was the result of the seizure in Texas of the database of the porn provider, Landslide Productions, on September 8, 1999. As Curtin’s credit card number was among those used, the gardaí secured a seven-day search warrant to seize his computer. The warrant was issued at 3.20 pm on May 20, 2002, and the prosecution claimed it was still valid when it was executed at 2.20 pm on May 27.

But no time was stated on the warrant, “which would be absolutely essential if it contemplated days of successive periods of 24 hours in order that everyone would know precisely when a particular warrant expired”, Judge Moran noted. He added that the law had been clear on this matter for over 60 years. “Where a period of time is expressed to being on or be reckoned from a particular day, that day shall, unless the contrary intention appears, be deemed to be included in such period”, the Interpretation Act 1937 specifies. The warrant was issued for seven days on May 20, so it was valid only until midnight on the night of May 26, 2002. A competent DPP would have known this. 

In 1990, the Supreme Court ruled that evidence obtained with a flawed warrant must be excluded unless there are extraordinary excusing circumstances, which clearly did not exist in this case. Judge Moran was placed in an invidious position but in fairness to him to applied the law as was his duty. But he and others were scathing of the decision of the DPP to allow the case go to trial knowing full well it would fail. That is the scandal involving the DPP.

In April 2004 Garda representatives called on the DPP to explain why he gave the go-ahead for the collapsed Judge Brian Curtin prosecution. GRA president Michael Kirby said Judge Carroll Moran's ruling left the DPP with questions to answer. "The DPP will have to answer why he left the prosecution go. The judge said the law was crystal-clear, but obviously the DPP thought it was fine. He let the prosecution go." He added: "I'm sure he's going to have to give some explanation to the Department of Justice, but that's a matter for the minister." Gardaí are understood to be upset not only by the verdict, but by the fact they will be deemed partly responsible for the foul-up. "It doesn't paint us in a good light and, as always, we come out the worst in these things," said one garda. Mr Kirby confirmed that rank-and-file gardaí felt let down by the decision. 

As one newspaper wrote at the time: “Why did the DPP bring charges when, in the opinion of Judge Moran, he knew, or ought to have known, better. If the DPP didn’t know any better, should he be in the job? The court case was essentially an outrageous publicity stunt, a kind of show trial used just to inflame public opinion. This is anathema to a proper system of justice.”

The Ian Bailey Scandal

In the famous Ian Bailey civil case in 2015 Hamilton who had retired was called to give evidence. It gave us an insight as to how he ran his department. He told the High Court he decided there was insufficient evidence to warrant a prosecution of Ian Bailey for the murder of Sophie Toscan du Plantier. How did he come to this conclusion? Hamilton said he made his decision having read the Garda investigation file and taken advice from Robert Sheehan - the official in charge of the file - and two senior counsel to the effect there was insufficient evidence for a prosecution. You need to read the report by Sheehan which is a seriously flawed, opinionated, badly written and poorly researched Report containing many serious errors of fact. Hamilton said he took over as DPP in 1999 after his predecessor Eamonn Barnes retired. Mr Barnes had given some preliminary decisions on the Toscan du Plantier file but had not signed off fully on it, he said. It was not normal for a DPP to read all files, because about 2,000 come into the office annually, but he read the file as the case was very high profile and subject of intense public interest and concern. He had asked Mr Sheehan to inform gardaí of the decision not to prosecute Mr Bailey and the reasons for it. Gardaí had not questioned his decision but came back on later occasions with some additional evidence. A decision not to prosecute is not always final as it is always possible new evidence might come to light but no new evidence came to light of sufficient quality to change the position, he said. He also informed the Attorney General’s office of the position and believed that was about the time of Mr Bailey’s libel actions, heard in 2003.

After receiving an email from Mr Barnes in June 2011 concerning a 1998 incident involving the State Solicitor for west Cork, Malachy Boohig, Mr Hamilton said he contacted the Attorney General the same day. The jury has heard Mr Barnes' email stated Mr Boohig told Mr Barnes he was asked by a senior garda to ask the Minister for Justice to get the DPP to prosecute Mr Bailey. Remember Barnes was retired at this time. He was actually on holidays when he read an article in the Irish times. This prompted him to interfere in the case.

In his evidence in the Bailey civil case, Hamilton said the DPP must decide whether there was enough evidence to allow the matter go to the jury for a decision, not whether there was enough to secure a conviction. “An investigator can act on suspicion but the DPP has to act on evidence.” If you read Sheehan’s report you will see that the assertions he makes about Bailey’s innocence are devoid of evidence and the evidence that suggest his guilt is actually omitted. Sheehan was also called to give evidence.

Sheehan agreed he made a memo on March 9th, 1998 of a phone conversation with Mr Boohig. It stated Mr Boohig had said he was approached by Assistant Commissioner Martin McQuinn, on the basis of having attended the same college as the then minister for justice John O’Donoghue, to ask him to get the DPP to prosecute Mr Bailey. When Sheehan endeavoured to give his opinion on matters he was reprimanded by the Judge on several occasions about his behaviour.

Hamilton’s decision not to prosecute Bailey on the basis of the deeply flawed report by Sheehan is one of his greatest failings as DPP.

CLAIRE LOFTUS (2011-2021)

Claire Loftus was born in Dublin in 1967. Her father Dermot was a solicitor and she herself qualified as a solicitor in 1992 after a degree in politics and history in UCD. In 2002 she earned a master's degree in Public Sector Management from Trinity College Dublin in 2002. She began her career as a prosecutor in 1993 and worked in the Chief State Solicitor's Office for seven years. She was involved in the failed prosecution of former Taoiseach Charles Haughey in 1998 related to obstruction of the McCracken Tribunal.

Claire Loftus DPP (2011-2021)

Between 2001 and 2009, she was the Chief Prosecution Solicitor at the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions Loftus was appointed as the Director of Public Prosecutions in November 2011. Het term was for ten years. During her term she was heavily criticised for not prosecuting Ian Bailey although no reasons were ever given

CATHERINE PIERCE (2021-

Pierse was born in Listowel, County Kerry and studied at University College Cork. She qualified as a solicitor in 2001 working first as a criminal defence lawyer for Kelleher and O’Doherty Solicitors. In 2011 she earned a master's degree in governance from the Queen's University Belfast in 2011. She also worked for a time as a legal adviser to the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission and was a lawyer at the Central Bank of Ireland.

Catherine Pierce DPP 2011 to date

Between 2016 and 2018 she was the head of legal, policy and research at the Policing Authority between 2016 and 2018. Her final position before becoming Director of Public Prosecutions was head of the agency's prosecution support services division. Pierse was announced as successor to Claire Loftus as the Director of Public Prosecutions in October 2021. Her appointment was effective from 8 November 202. Pierce has yet to state whether convicted murderer Ian Bailey (now deceased) should have been charged with murder.