Did Veronica Guerin’s death change anything?

For sadly obvious reasons, I won’t be spoiling your enjoyment (if that’s the right word) of Joel Schumacher’s Veronica Guerin by telling you that its eponymous heroine dies in the end.

Predictably for a Jerry Bruckheimer production, the film takes quite a few liberties with the truth but even the sharpest script doctor couldn’t conjure up a traditional Hollywood happy ending from the callous murder of a young mother.

Not that they don’t try to at least find the silver lining in the dark storm clouds of the Sunday Independent journalist’s death. The film closes with a truly haunting version of ‘The Fields Of Athenry’ playing over scenes of Guerin’s funeral before cutting to the Four Courts, where we’re treated to overblown shots of John Gilligan, Brian Meehan and Patrick ‘Dutchy’ Holland being led away in handcuffs, and then to the Dail assembly giving itself a self-congratulatory standing ovation as they sign in tough new legislation to tackle drug barons.

A solemn voice-over informs us that, in the immediate aftermath of Guerin’s murder, the Criminal Assets Bureau [CAB] was established, the crime rate dropped by 15per cent and, like snakes in the time of St. Patrick, heroin dealers were run from their inner-city lairs by Concerned Parents Against Drugs, never to return.

If you didn’t actually live here, you’d undoubtedly leave the cinema with the impression that Ireland’s crime problem had been swiftly dealt with and, while it was undoubtedly a terrible tragedy, at least Verinica’s death hadn’t been in vain.

Unfortunately, as the most recent Garda Annual Report confirms, that’s simply not the case. While it’s certainly true that the reporter’s death caused shockwaves throughout the country and galvanised the powers that be into taking some immediate action, seven years on from her murder in June 1996 the most recent crime figures (from 2002) make for depressing reading.

Across the board, the crime situation is now as bad – if not worse – than it’s ever been. Serious crime rose by 22 per cent overall from 2001, with a worrying 50 per cent increase in assault and 62 per cent in sexual offences. It was the second substantial annual increase in a row, and reported serious crime has now risen by more than 40 per cent since 2000.

In 2002, sexual assaults rose by more than 50 per cent with rape increasing by about 25 per cent. Larcenies were up 27 per cent and fraud 22 per cent. A miscellaneous category, which includes firearms offences, child neglect and cruelty, child pornography and a variety of other crimes, rose by 62 per cent. Meanwhile, the crime detection rate fell by three per cent.

However, it’s the co-joined murder and drug figures that relate most directly to Guerin’s legacy. Following an initial decline, it seems that it’s back to business as usual for Irish gangsters. And their businesses are booming – along with their guns.

Drug offences were up 23 per cent – with seizures up a staggering 500 per cent. More than €67 millions’ worth of narcotics have been seized so far this year (compared to €45 million last year, and €20 million in 2000), with no discernible effect on street supply.

The number of murders committed in 2002 was 51, down one on 2001. So far this year, there have been an estimated 32 homicides in the republic – one third of them gangland hits. And with turf wars raging hard in Dublin, Cork and, especially, Limerick, that figure seems set to rise sharply over the coming months. It’s also worth noting that just a few weeks ago, on the seventh anniversary of Guerin’s murder, the Sunday World’s crime correspondent Paul Williams was seriously threatened with a similar fate.

Gangland sources have confirmed to Hot Press that a life can now be bought on Irish streets for as little as €1,000 – with many would-be assassins willing to accept half an ounce of cocaine as payment.

Writer Paul O’Mahony is a former research psychologist with the Department of Justice and one of Ireland’s leading criminologists. In his considered opinion, despite an initial downturn in the crime figures, in reality little has changed since Guerin’s murder.

“There were several responses to it at the time,” he points out, “it wasn’t just CAB and more law enforcement. There was also a massive expansion in methadone maintenance. And that undoubtedly connects to the drop in crime over the following five years. And I think that was real enough, from 1996 to two years ago, but now – as cocaine usurps heroin as the drug of choice – we’ve seen crime increasing again.”

O’Mahony is sceptical of some of the Gardai’s figures, and particularly scathing about what he sees as their recent penchant for spin-doctoring.

“I’m alarmed at the way the Gardai have turned to the use of PR in recent years and their annual reports have become these glossy productions. They now have this evaluation section at the back which is all about patting themselves on the back. Their report in ’99 had this huge thing about how, ‘The biggest investigation ever in the state is drawn to a successful conclusion’. And this was all about Gilligan and the rest of them.

“Unfortunately, it was a bit of an empty boast because things have been unravelling ever since. Even this week you’ve got Gilligan appealing his sentence [already acquitted of Guerin’s murder, judgement on his 28-year sentence for cannabis smuggling was reserved last Thursday – OT] and you’ve got two people acquitted because of the questionable nature of [supergrass, Charlie] Bowden’s evidence. And this is happening at a time when the guards have never been under more scrutiny and criticism, and have never been as exposed for downright corruption, for abuse of power, inefficiencies, all sorts of problems. But they’re using their publicity space, as it were, to make these empty boasts.”

According to O’Mahony, recent record drug seizures still represent “only a drop in the ocean” of the overall drug trade, and the only positive and lasting aspect of Veronica Guerin’s legacy is the CAB. Even this, though, is the equivalent of putting a band-aid on a cancer sore.

“The CAB has had some success against drugs gangs initially – and has now branched out into political corruption, etc. They’re still hauling in very considerable sums of money every year. And they’re a useful tool, because they attack people financially. But it hasn’t changed the reality of the drugs importation underworld. That’s still highly successful and flourishing. New people have sprung up and they’re probably now more sophisticated in how they spend their money. And they probably aren’t going to get caught the same way. People like Gilligan invested in very obvious ostentatious wealth.

“But on the other side you’ve got the law enforcement within the drugs area. And when you look at drugs charges, they’ve steeply risen as well. But the proportion that are cannabis related are still much the same. So although they might have doubled from 4,500 to 9,000 charged with this kind of thing, it’s still only a drop in the ocean. I mean, you could probably go out in one day and get 9,000 drugs charges! You’ve still got a situation where the focus is almost entirely on cannabis, which is not the real issue.”

So what’s to be done? O’Mahony has long been an advocate of decriminalisation of all drugs, maintaining that regulation (and, in some cases, taxation) is the only way to control the problem and take the power away from the gangsters. In an increasingly Americanised and puritanical world, though, most politicians and legislators can’t countenance the idea of legalisation, viewing it as akin to surrender.

Of course, the people most vehemently opposed to any form of legalisation aren’t politicians, parents or policemen. As one senior Drug Squad detective put it to this writer recently, “If you did legalise drugs… well, the dealers wouldn’t take that lying down, you know.”

The more you think about it, the more chilling that statement seems. And it doesn’t say much for the legacy of Veronica Guerin either.