Zero tolerance, Irish style

It's been an uncomfortable week for the reputation of the Republic's police force. Two unsolved crimes, one from 1974 and the other from a few years ago, have worked their way back into the public attention. To the latter first, the murder in west Cork of Sophie Toscan du Plantier, wife of the famous French film producer. The locals always had a prime suspect in mind but the police couldn't prove anything. Now the said suspect is suing various media outlets for libel, on the ground that they clearly insinuated he was the murderer. The blog GUBU provides the bottom line -- even if he wins, the evidence that has come out in the case will destroy his reputation.

Maybe in that case we owe the French a bad turn because of the way they botched a case involving an Irish murder victim. More damaging for the police is the 1974 case: this refers to the coordinated quadruple bomb attacks in Dublin and Monaghan that left 34 people dead. The proximate suspects are loyalist extremists -- none of whom was ever charged -- but there has always been a suspicion of involvement of high-level British security officials as well. There is no lack of motive for such involvement, as the British government could have felt that the Republic needed to stiffen its resolve in the War on Terra (as Dubya would say); relatedly, an influential loyalist element within the Northern Ireland security forces could have felt that the Republic needed a taste of large scale bomb attacks on its home ground.

Anyway, a new report into the bombings released last week hedged its bets on the question of official involvement, but did provide insights into the extremely sloppy investigative techniques of the time. Two lowlights: much of the key forensic evidence was washed away by the firehoses, and the forensic lab of the time was a shared facility with the Department of Agriculture. Certainly we can do a chemical analysis of that bomb fragment, lads, but first I need to test this tissue sample for brucellosis.

We'll leave it to the Shamrockshire Eagle to hash out the political significance of the botched investigation. For us, it's disturbing enough to wonder whether, given the general mismanagement of the public sector in the Republic today, if the bombings were to happen again tomorrow, would the investigation be any better?