The murder of reporter Veronica Guerin in June must dominate any review of the criminal justice system in 1996. This was not only a brutal and ruthless killing; it was also a deliberate attack on public life in the form of the media. It underlined the arrogance that had taken root among a small coterie of leading professional criminals. For years, the feeble response to the growth in violent crime had allowed these people the freedom to enjoy the fruits of their criminal endeavours; with the murder of Veronica Guerin they declared that they would not allow a tenacious reporter to stand in their way. But her death, coming after the murder of yet another member of the Garda, unleashed a public anger without precedent and propelled the crime issue to the top of the political agenda.
The new found political will to confront crime did yield some positive results; the establishment of the Criminal Assets Bureau and the efficiency review of the Garda were overdue initiatives. The high level of public support for the proposed restrictions on bail in the November referendum was also indicative.
All of this was something less than the integrated and long term commission on the criminal justice system which has long been advocated by this newspaper. The political response to crime is still reactive rather than pro active. And there are still very few politicians across all the main parties who have a real understanding of the crime issue. But it would be churlish not to acknowledge the vigour with which the Minister for Justice, Mrs Owen, pushed forward her package of anti crime measures.
To say that Mrs Owen had an uncomfortable year in the Department of Justice would be an understatement. The Judge Dominic Lynch affair exposed shocking levels of maladministration in the Department. The subsequent decision to establish new statutory agencies for the courts and a new prisons board some eleven years after this latter had been recommended by the Whitaker Report represents as good an example as may be found of a Government responding on an ad hoc basis to an unfolding crisis.
For the Garda, there were encouraging signs that the force's patchy record in respect of serious crime may be reversed. The new Commissioner, Mr Pat Byrne, has helped to reinvigorate the force, giving it a stronger sense of direction. The force appears to have strengthened its investigative capacity and there is a renewed emphasis on intelligence gathering. Whether it translates into convictions, remains to be seen. That will be the acid test of Mr Byrne's leadership and the Government's new found resolution.
The public will also be looking for greater progress against the drug traffickers in the inner city flat complexes and the suburbs. Nothing worse could be envisaged to the long term detriment of public order, than if the Garda loses the battle for community support against drugs. Some progress has been made by the recent Operation Dochas but the communities affected will be looking for more high profile arrests and prosecutions. The Garda authorities will know that there is a great deal of ground to be made up in working class areas of Dublin. And there is, all the while, "the sense that the vigilantes many of them linked to the Provisionals - are watching and waiting to move in.