Minister for Justice Jim O'Callaghan will deliver a public apology to the family of hit-and-run victim Shane O’Farrell in the Dáil next week.
The apology follows years of campaigning by the family of the 23-year-old who was killed while out cycling near his home in Carrickmacross, Co Monaghan, on 2 August 2011.
The driver of the car, Zigimantas Gridziuska, should have been in custody at the time of the killing.
In a statement today to Saturday with Colm Ó Mongáin on RTÉ Radio 1, Shane’s mother, Lucia said: "We note Minister O'Callaghan will make an apology to Shane on Tuesday.
"Shane's case raises serious issues about how the criminal justice system works and how it ought to work.
"We await the apology on Tuesday."
Gridzuiska had been a regular defendant before the District and Circuit Criminal courts in Monaghan, Cavan and Louth in the years prior to the killing.
Seven months before the hit-and-run, he was before the Circuit Criminal Court on a number of theft charges.
Judge John O’Hagan deferred his sentencing on that day, but ordered that the Lithuanian national be brought back before him if he committed any more offences and he would be jailed.
Just months later, Gridziuska was convicted of five charges of theft at Ardee District Court - but he was not brought back before Judge O’Hagan as ordered and received a suspended sentence.
The judge at the Ardee court was not informed of Judge O’Hagan’s order.
Dooley hopes apology will help O'Farrell family
Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture Timmy Dooley said that he hoped the apology would help the O'Farrell family.
He told RTÉ's Saturday with Colm Ó Mongáin: "I would hope that it will help the family to bring some level of their pain and suffering another way along that journey, because we have to recognise their amazing resilience and the input that they have made, not just to changing legislation, but also enforcing the State to address situations like that differently.
"The statement will be, and knowing the character of Jim O'Callaghan, I'm sure it will be as fulsome as he can in assisting the family in bringing another step on the journey. I don't think this family will ever really have closure."
Mr O'Farrell’s family have long campaigned for a public inquiry into his death, but Mr Dooley said that that may lead to further issues.
"There's been many discussions about whether or not a public inquiry would go further. There are always issues when you try to do something in a public inquiry," he said.
"Those whose character may be impacted have access to the courts and you tend to find that people lawyer up.
"The investigation gets bogged down in the courts for forever and a day. We haven't been great in recent years at having an appropriate process in place that gets an outcome.
"The scoping inquiry that was done previously assembled a lot of information which we're now familiar with, and I know it hasn't gone far enough for the family."
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Meanwhile, Sinn Féin TD Darren O'Rourke said his party welcomed the public apology, but that it was long overdue.
Speaking on the same programme, he said: "Shane O'Farrell was failed by the State. The man who killed him should have been imprisoned at the time. The family have been failed by the state ever since.
"So much of the detail that we are now aware of in relation to this case was generated by the hard work of the family. I think it is welcome that we have this statement from the minister scheduled for Tuesday. We'll wait to hear the the detail of it.
"I can say on behalf of Sinn Féin, I'm absolutely sure that we will continue to work with the family on the back of it."
