Bend the rules, minister – everybody loves a maverick

Sunday Tribune, 1 February

Everybody loves a maverick cop. You know, the kind that's normally described like this: "In a world without rules… he made his own rules…" The kind that will beat the bejaysus out of the bad guy, crash dozens of cars, be shouted at by his captain, surrender his badge, and then solve the case while on suspension. This will, inevitably, mean shooting the crook with his last bullet.
Back in the 1970s, the US had Dirty Harry, while Britain had Regan from The Sweeney.
In Ireland, we had… Lugs Brannigan.
Sergeant James 'Lugs' Brannigan didn't need a gun. He had hands the size of dinner plates which he used to keep Dublin's gougers in line. Last week, Justice Paul Carney recalled how Lugs's techniques made the city safer. He also said that the garda "heavy gang" of that era, who specialised in eliciting confessions, were more misguided than bad. The media picked up the thread and, by Wednesday, Ireland was fondly recounting stories of coppers clattering skangers into submission.
Now, I don't know about you, but I don't want to see a return to that type of heavy-handed policing. If Nicky Kelly is reading this, I'm sure he'll agree. In 1978, he was wrongly convicted for his alleged part in the Sallins mail train robbery. He had 'confessed' after being tortured by the 'heavy gang' and, in 1992, was given a presidential pardon.
That said, with all the genuine crime we have, it's understandable why people hanker for Lugs's methods. He broke the rules to mete out natural justice. He believed that, sometimes, it's okay to go above the law to serve a greater good.
That's a sentiment that should be echoed by another lawman who was in the news last week – Justice minister Dermot Ahern.
On Tuesday, Nigerian woman Pamela Izevbekhai lost a High Court challenge to the minister's order to deport her. She says her girls, Jemima and Naomi, will be subjected to genital mutilation by their father's family if they are repatriated. Her other little girl, Elizabeth, died after undergoing the procedure in 1994. The European Court of Human Rights has now intervened and Pamela has been given a temporary reprieve.
Rules are rules. The Minister for Justice has done everything by the book in this case. He's upheld his duty to protect our borders. He needn't feel guilty about Pamela's case. Neither should we as a nation feel any guilt towards Africa. We didn't colonise it. So the state should fight on to deport Pamela's girls. Rules are rules, right?
In short, no. Jemima and Naomi were aged three and four when their deportation was ordered in 2005. Four years is a long time in a little girl's life. Sligo is now their home. The overwhelming desire of their Irish friends to keep them here confirms that. It's now a case of, simply, making an exception.
We are used to bending the rules in this country – politicians do it for developers all the time. We're also a very compassionate race, and I don't believe minister Ahern, who has children of his own, can be unmoved by Jemima and Naomi's situation.
He is a man of strong convictions. Last month, he defended forwarding a complaint from reviled terror chief Michael McKevitt to a previous justice minister. "It would be a dereliction of duty," Ahern said, "if I was to ignore families when they come to me indicating that there is, perhaps, in some way, some infringement of someone's human rights."
Are the rights of two vulnerable children not as important as those of a prisoner?
Ahern has the power to bend the rules and let them stay. It won't, as some say, open the floodgates to mass immigration. It's about doing the right thing.
Just two weeks have passed since the Roscommon incest case came to light. The state failed in that instance to protect children from the barbarism of a parent. Will it now fail to protect Naomi and Jemima from relatives who want to mutilate them?
Bend the rules, minister. Administer natural justice. Everybody loves a maverick.