The demolition of a house at the centre of a siege in Abbeylara, Co Longford, just days after the siege ended with the shooting dead of Mr John Carthy has caused concern in the local community.
Many questions have been asked about why 27-year-old Mr Carthy was shot dead, why his sister was not allowed to talk to him during the siege, why he wasn't delivered cigarettes at his request, and why his solicitor was not contacted. But the most recent question to emerge is why the house he grew up in and shared with his mother Rose was razed days after the shooting.
As recently as last Saturday Mr Carthy's sister Marie again called for a "searching" independent inquiry into her brother's death. However, if independent investigators are called in they will be unable to take measurements at the scene. Where the Carthy house once stood is now a reseeded lawn.
Mr Jim Higgins TD, Fine Gael's spokesman on Justice, visited the scene in the days following the shooting. "My immediate instinct when I heard the house was demolished was that it was most unusual by virtue of the fact that the investigation was ongoing and the final report from Garda Chief Supt Adrian Culligan was not completed," he said.
"One would imagine as much of the scene as possible would have been retained intact until such time as all the various questions surrounding the handling of the siege had been fully answered and this is particularly relevant now by virtue of the fact that the FBI have been brought in order to give their expert opinion in relation to the management of the affair."
Mr Higgins said he believed it "fundamental" to the investigation that the house remain intact until the internal Garda inquiry was published.
The road outside the Carthy home where Mr Carthy was gunned down was also resurfaced after the incident.
A local farmer told The Irish Times this week that residents had been complaining for years about the appalling state of the road. He believes it ironic that the road was finally upgraded just days after the shooting.
He added that three men, believed locally to be FBI men, visited the scene last Wednesday, and as late as last Saturday gardai were again taking levels at the scene. "People in the area did think it was funny bringing people over from America to bring them down here when there was nothing left to show them. There's nothing left. It seems farcical really.
"People are wondering what they are coming to measure now when there's nothing left to measure. It's very hard for them to explain that," he added.
When contacted yesterday, Supt John Farrelly of the Garda press office, who was the spokesman at the scene during the siege, said: "We didn't demolish the house and it has absolutely nothing to do with us."
He confirmed that in the aftermath of the shooting gardai from the Garda technical bureau went to the scene and took measurements, photographs and drew maps of the area and these would all be on record and would be the same no matter who took them.
The house was demolished by Longford County Council, which had just built a house on the same site for the Carthy family. Mr James Clarke, the council's housing officer, said it was always envisaged that the old house would be demolished as soon as the new one was complete.
He said the new house, on which work began in January 1999, was almost finished at the time of the shooting, and the council asked the contractors working at the scene to withdraw for a number of days after the incident.
"Within days of the funeral some of Mrs Carthy's relatives and a number of friends asked us to speed up the finishing of the new house and the demolition of the old one. Obviously we would be very sympathetic to the whole situation and would only do something at their request," Mr Clarke said.
"We met with no resistance," he added.
The housing officer said the local authority would not normally put footpaths and a tarmacadam driveway at council houses, but they had done so in this case "as a gesture".
He acknowledged the house was demolished "quite soon" after the tragedy but added that it wasn't removed in a day. Its slates were lifted first and there was ample time for anybody who wanted the work stopped to make such a request.
A local Fine Gael councillor, Mr Frank Kilbride, said there was nothing "underhanded" about the demolition and it would have been up to the gardai to preserve it if they wished. He also said the road outside the Carthy home was due for upgrading for a long time and money had been sanctioned to resurface it this year before the siege took place.
Mr Carthy was shot dead on Holy Thursday, April 20th, and the council began stripping slates off the house less than two weeks later.