I do not know how much the Minister of State knows, or even remembers, about what occurred in 1976 and thereafter following the robbery by the IRA of €150,000 from a train at Sallins, County Kildare. It was an audacious robbery at the time that hit all the headlines. What did not really hit the headlines afterwards was the Garda Síochána arrest, torture and beating of confessions out of six men. There was also a sleeping judge in the Special Criminal Court who subsequently died, a retrial thereafter, convictions and the overturning on appeal of those convictions. There has been a failure since to acknowledge the miscarriage of justice and the cruel and inhuman treatment of the men. The Minister of State might know of Nicky Kelly, who went on the run during the first trial and returned when the convictions of two others were overturned. He ended up having to go on hunger strike because all appeals failed, despite the fact that the others had their convictions overturned. Eventually, the only way to free him was to pardon him. These men are elderly at this stage with broken health. It is not just about those who are convicted. There were others who did not receive the full sentence of the court who were broken and tortured. Nobody can deny the world has moved on from the 1970s. Oversight and transparency is the name of the game, in many ways, and are more respected. There is intolerance of any type of misbehaviour or criminal acts in An Garda Síochána, not only by members of An Garda Síochána but by the public and the political sphere. At the time, however, there seemed to be an acceptance of it. RTÉ broadcast a documentary a number of years ago, "Crimes and Confessions", which outlined the existence of a Garda "heavy gang" that seemed to be a law unto itself and seemed to have the cover of the political masters of the time. That has been followed up recently by a podcast by the Irish Independent newspaper, which further outlined the failures in this instance and the need to address these failures. It is not just myself asking. Obviously, the men themselves, namely, Brian McNally, Nicky Kelly, John Fitzpatrick, Mick Barrett and Osgur Breatnach, have relentlessly campaigned to get the State to acknowledge the truth of what occurred to them. Last year, Claire McEvoy, acting co-director of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, ICCL, stated: The human rights violations inflicted upon the Sallins Men by An Garda Síochána and accepted by other parts of the Irish criminal justice system were part of a systemic pattern of human rights violations endemic across many years in Ireland’s history. The Irish State has systematically failed to address their treatment and the systems which enabled this treatment to occur. This, in a nutshell, is why there needs to be an inquiry into this.

Sentiment score: -0.18

The Minister received this correspondence almost two years ago, so it is taking a long time to receive attention. The matter itself should be receiving attention even though it is 50 years on. There is no doubting the innocence of the men; that is not why we are seeking an inquiry. The reason is the fact that the State had a system where there were rogue gardaí and non-rogue gardaí. Did the heavy gang exist at all and was it State policy? Why was it not accepted that there was a judge asleep on the bench? The reason the first case collapsed was that the judge died. Despite the denial, why was there torture of the men in question? Why, despite the fact it was obvious to everybody that the Irish Republican Socialist Party, IRSP, was not involved in the robbery, did the State continue with the convictions? Why, even when the initial convictions were overturned, did the State continue to go after Nicky Kelly and then pardon the men with no apologies to any of them for the trauma they went through, for the brutality and for the fact the State's case was that they inflicted the wounds on themselves, despite it being virtually impossible for them to do so because they were in Garda custody the whole time? There has been no apology. The State is living in denial. The inquiry being sought is into the treatment of the men and not whether they were guilty. That has already been well established at this stage. As I said, there has not been an apology. It is not just the men themselves seeking an inquiry. Human rights organisations that are well respected not only in Ireland but abroad have demanded that the State look into this matter. It is bad form two years on that the Minister for justice still has not responded or has not met any of the men or their representatives.

Sentiment score: -0.14