Deputy Mary Lou McDonald- speech from 27 May 2025

Gourmáigathe, Lás Cán Coeurle. Lás Cán Coeurle, the apology offered today by Government to the family of Shane O'Farrell comes after 14 years of their courageous and relentless pursuit of truth and justice for their son and their brother. This apology is a vindication of the O'Farrell family's unwavering stand for Shane and for the life that was so cruelly taken from him. It is an acknowledgement of the litany of abuse by the entire state apparatus, not merely the criminal justice system, to which the family was subjected. And it is to the shame of successive governments that it has taken 14 long years to get to this point. Shane's parents, Lucia and Jim, and his sisters, Gemma, Pia, Amy and Tana, fought a fight that no family should ever have to face. A heartbroken, bereft family forced to battle for more than a decade against a state and system that should have their backs. The truth is that the wagons were circled, ranks were closed and the state lined up against the O'Farrells at every turn. In the words of Shane's sister Hannah, the family were treated like the enemy for daring to ask questions. And every bit of progress, every new piece of information had to be dragged out of the authorities and would never have seen the light of day were it not for the tenacity of the O'Farrell family. On an August night in 2011, Shane O'Farrell was cycling home to his family, but he never made it. Shane was struck by a car driven by Zigamíthas Girdusga near the town of Carrick Macross in County Monaghan. It was a hit and run. He left Shane to die on the road. A young man of 23 with his whole life in front of him, his immense potential, his bright future, all of his tomorrows snatched away in the blink of an eye. To have your beautiful son taken from you in such a cruel way is enough to shatter the heart of any mother, any father, any family. But to uncover that the man responsible for your son's death should have been in jail at the time, heaps searing injustice upon immeasurable heartbreak. On the night Girdusga hit Shane with his car, he was in breach of bail and should have been in Garda custody. Seven months prior to that fateful night, he appeared before the Circuit Criminal Court on theft charges. The judge deferred sentencing him for one year, but warned him, as the minister has said, that he would be jailed if he committed further offences. Three months before the hit and run, he appeared before R.D. Court on further theft charges. The judge was not informed of the order from the Circuit Court and he was given a suspended sentence. He was released again. And it was this disastrous decision that allowed Girdusga to be driving a car that night. A disastrous decision that cost Shane O'Farrell his young life. Serious questions have been repeatedly asked about the nature of engagements between Girdusga and An Garda Siakana. Because he routinely broke the law. He had 42 criminal convictions to his name. The Gardaí failed to execute court orders against him. He received three custodial sentences in 2010, the year before he hit Shane O'Farrell with his car. And he did not serve a single day of any one of those sentences. He was undeniably a recidivist offender. But was he more than that? There are credible allegations that he had in fact been operating as a Gardaí informer. And yet there has never been answers provided, not one. This person was routinely able to flout bail and court orders and custodial sentences. He hit and killed a young man with his car at a time when he should have been in jail. And the big unanswered question is this. Why is it that he was at liberty on that night that he fatally struck Shane with his car? Nobody has ever given an answer as to how this was allowed to happen. Not to the O'Farrells, not to the Dáil and not to the general public. The O'Farrells have faced indignity upon indignity. They have been traumatised and re-traumatised, confronted with years of shoulder shrugs, stonewalling with the message from the powers that be, give up, shut up, go away. Lucia and Jim O'Farrell, their children and their family faced it all. But they did not give up. They did not shut up. And they did not go away. They fought and fought and fought. That the family has achieved this apology today is a testament not only to their courage, not only to their determination, but to their undying love for Shane. His face, his voice, the life he could have had, the life he should have had, inspires them to keep going, to face it all. God knows the O'Farrells are owed an apology from the state. They are owed reams of apologies. Today is the day for this lion-hearted family who have shown what it means to love somebody unconditionally. A family who has not once backed down in their fight to achieve justice for their son and brother. They have faced the heartache of the empty chair, a pain compounded by the absence of answers, by the absence of truth. Yet they keep Shane's memory alive and did not allow his death to be swept under the carpet. I have met Lucia and Jim so many times throughout the years. Their decency, their integrity, their love for their family shines through every single time. Their values stand in stark contrast to the disrespect and the dishonesty that they faced. A formidable Irish mammy and daddy who took on the powers that be, the power of the state, and never flinched, not once, because they would not let their son down. A 23-year-old lad who had everything going for him, who had his entire life ahead of him, but who never got the chance to live the years owed to him. I can't wait for the son of that. Cro hunas do that, so that's the last guild this year, go raibh an choart ag moonchear o' pharell. Bwenn tóvacht le Séain o' pharell. Bwenn tóvacht le sén o' pharell. Bwenn tóvacht le na heil. Bwenn tóvacht fresh en léna bóis. Agus leith an balaic ar fúir sée bóis. Séain o' pharell mattered. His life mattered. His future mattered. His death and how he died mattered too. And the courageous fight of the O'Farrell family who we salute stands today as an enduring testament that the truth matters. Like love, it matters and it endures.