THE Government will assess the implications of the murder of Ms Veronica Guerin in the coming days, according to senior sources, though there were no indications last night that new proposals to deal with the criminal and drugs underworld were imminent.
The Cabinet yesterday approved draft regulations, under the Criminal Justice Act 1994 to enable Irish courts to enforce court orders made abroad, confiscating the proceeds of crime.
The regulations, which are expected to be published today or tomorrow, will permit Ireland to become party to United Nations and Council of Europe conventions on illicit drug traffic and money laundering. These conventions will enable Ireland to benefit from reciprocal arrangements whereby Irish confiscation orders will be enforced abroad.
The three Coalition leaders are still considering the most effective means of dealing with crimes committed by persons on bail. Though agreement has been reached between the three Government parties to tackle the issue, they have not yet produced a combined response, to the proposal from the Minister for justice, Mrs Owen, to hold a referendum on bail.
Stunned by the shooting of Ms Guerin, political leaders suspended Dail business yesterday to allow for statements to be made on the murder.
The Taoiseach, Mr Bruton, said that Ms Guerin's work in recent times established her as a particularly gifted and professional investigative journalist. She wrote about the unacceptable face of life, about murders, drug dealing and crime. In doing so, she made an important contribution to the public life of this country.
The murder of a journalist was sinister in the extreme, Mr Bruton said. "The independence of the media is one of the hallmarks of a strong and vibrant democracy. Journalists must be independent not only of political influence, commercial influence, personal or sectoral influence; journalists must also now be independent of threats and terror from whatever source, the Taoiseach said.
The full resources of the State would be brought to bear in bringing to justice those responsible for the murder.
The Fianna Fail leader, Mr Bertie Ahern, who knew Ms Guerin well as they both lived in Artane, Dublin, 20 years ago, said that this event was an indictment of how crime had been allowed to grow rampant in our society over many years. It represented a direct attack on democracy.
He paid tribute to her work as secretary of the Fianna Fail delegation to the New Ireland Forum in the early 1980s.
At a recent conference on crime, she had told Mr Ahern she hoped that the contribution she was making to exposing the underworld of the city and country was not all in vain and a waste of time. "I recall those words and remember them more so today," he said.
Expressing his sympathy to Ms Guerin's family, the Tanaiste, Mr Spring, said her outrageous killing was clearly linked to a series of highly skilled and penetrating newspaper articles which she had written for the Sunday Independent.
The Minister for Justice, Mrs Owen, who is attending a UN meeting in New York, said that if the murder was related to Ms Guerin's work as a journalist, it was a naked attack on the freedom of the press which all right thinking people would deplore.
The Minister for Social Welfare, Mr De Rossa, expressed shock at the killing. "Veronica Guerin was a courageous reporter in the best traditions of investigative journalism. Her dogged pursuit of drug dealers, earned her enormous respect," he said. The murder represented a fundamental attack on democracy, he added.
The PD leader, Ms Mary Harney, said that the attack struck at, the very heart of our democracy. This was a different killing - the murder of a professional woman who was going about her duty as a professional. "It was one of the most serious murders ever in his country," she added.
The Minister of State, Ms Liz McManus, said that Ms Guerin was a courageous reporter in the best traditions of investigative journalism. The murder of a journalist represented a fundamental attack on democracy.
The Green Party MEP, Ms Patricia McKenna, said the death had deep implications for the future of Irish investigative journalism. "While most newspapers are filled with lightweight stories, Ms Guerin fearlessly investigated what was going on in Dublin's gangland and exposed just how sordid it was."
