AMERICAN and British diplomats have criticised Ireland’s extradition record, saying requests to hand over suspected criminals seldom come to anything.

Of 12 American requests made since the last successful application in 1999, five have failed, five are still being processed and two were jettisoned because the suspects fled the country.

The republic’s reputation on extradition warrants is so bad that the American authorities waited for Sean Garland to enter Northern Ireland before requesting that he be arrested by British authorities last weekend.

The president of the Workers’ party and former chief of staff of the Official IRA was indicted by the American attorney general last May for allegedly buying and selling counterfeit dollars from North Korea.

“Ireland just doesn’t extradite,” said an American state department official. “You would figure that with so much understanding between the two countries it wouldn’t be such a problem, but it is.

“Between any two countries legal systems differ and that is a consideration, but you would expect there to be less of a problem than there is.

“We extradite people from the Hague all the time, and the Dutch investigate everything very thoroughly to ensure their own satisfaction, but in Ireland it’s just not the same.”

Garland lives in Co Cavan, yet no request to extradite him was made to the Irish authorities. He was arrested hours after he crossed the border to attend the annual ard fheis of the Workers’ party in Belfast last weekend.

There have been just two successful extradition requests from America in more than 20 years. Last week, a spokesman for the Department of Justice defended the country’s extradition record.

“It’s true that nobody has been extradited to the United States in the period since 2000, but the reasons for this vary,” he said. “In one case there were problems with the extradition documentation, in two cases the courts refused the applications, in one case the attorney general advised extradition was not possible and another request was withdrawn,” said the spokesman.

Two of the suspects fled Ireland before any action was taken and five are still being processed.

“It doesn’t exactly work even between the two neighbouring states,” said one British diplomat. “Evelyn Glenholmes springs to mind.”

Glehholmes was at the top of Scotland Yard’s most-wanted list for five IRA bombings and three murders, including the Harrods blast in which six people were killed.

In 1986 a judge in Dublin allowed her to walk free because her name was spelled without an “s” on the arrest warrant. Despite nine further warrants, she was never extradited.

Between 1971 and 1980 the RUC issued 80 warrants for arrest to the republic but only one resulted in an extradition.

Gerard Hogan, a barrister in Dublin and specialist on extradition law, says historical problems have contributed to the situation.

“There were difficulties in the 1980s because the Ireland-America extradition treaty had been improperly ratified.

“I suppose that, during the period of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, there was a culture of people beating the extradition rap and that has perhaps been exported into other types of extradition agreements.”

More recently, in the “pink underwear” case, an Irish judge found that the former priest Patrick Colleary, who was charged with sexually abusing a boy, 10, could not be extradited because inmates were paraded in pink underwear in the prison where Colleary would have been detained until his trial. The judge was also concerned that the case might take up to three years to come to trial.

The Sligo-born priest officiated in Scottsdale, Arizona, where the alleged abuse took place but is now living in the west of Ireland. He caused further upset when he sent a Christmas card to friends, gloating that he would not be spending Christmas behind bars. “My final story of great joy. I will be home for Christmas. It sure will beat Madison Street (jail) and Sheriff Joe’s menu,” he said.

The Garland case followed a decade of investigation by the FBI into counterfeit “superdollars” — high quality fakes — being sold by the North Korean government, allegedly to destabilise the American dollar.

Times Recommends

• Henning Mankell: ‘If Wallander was alive, I wouldn’t be a friend of his’
• Secret society's skull and crossbones for sale
• Nigerian leader vanishes after medical treatment