The Labour leader, Mr Ruairi Quinn, has called on the Garda force and Garda representatives to dissociate themselves from the court challenge to the Abbeylara inquiry being taken by 36 individual gardai.
In a statement yesterday, Mr Quinn said that the court action taken by the gardai claims that public representatives could not conduct an inquiry by virtue of the fact that they were elected by the people. "If this is in any way representative of thinking in an Garda Siochana then I believe it is a dangerous trend," he said.
It was for the representatives of the people to determine how the Garda was held accountable, not the Garda itself, he said. "The inquiry into the shooting of John Carthy was conducted by the gardai themselves. That is no longer appropriate in this day and age."
An Oireachtas subcommittee investigation into the shooting dead of Mr Carthy by gardai at Abbeylara, Co Longford, last year has been adjourned while 36 gardai challenge its rights of inquiry in the courts.
The gardai are disputing almost all aspects of the work of the subcommittee including its powers to compel witnesses to attend and to direct the production of documents. Mr Quinn said the court judgement would have huge significance and would "not just determine whether the Oireachtas can inquire into the Abbeylara incident but effectively whether it could ever again carry out any inquiry into any matter".
He said the death of a young man arising from the use of force by officers of the State should concern everyone and should be investigated.
He said the European Court of Human Rights had recently ruled that where a citizen lost his life at the hands of the State, it was reasonable to expect the investigation of the event would not be conducted by the force which carried out the killing.
Repeating his call for a Garda ombudsman separate from the force itself, he called on the Garda to realise "that it is time to change fundamentally their legislative structure.
"It is time for genuine accountability. Nobody in the State can reasonably expect to operate under structures, many of which were created in the 1920s. The world has moved on considerably since. "The gardai and their representative organisations should not allow themselves be associated with a challenge to the rights of the legislature to govern on behalf of the people."