One dead hack

To some people, the concept of a dead tabloid journalist is a good thing.

These people are usually the sort who 'take' the Irish Times at their desk each morning and think that McDowell's forthcoming censorship law, or privacy law as he calls it, is great because it'll stop people from rumbling their off-shore accounts and payments to Fianna Fail in future.

To most right-thinking people, the idea that a journalist should die in the course of their work is abhorrent. It is a frontal attack on the nature of a free press, as well as a personal tragedy for a family.

Hence, after Veronica Guerin's death, there was a stunning public outcry which led to the formation of the Criminal Assets Bureau and stringent new legislation relating to organised crime, as well as a massive manhunt for her killers.

But there was no such response for the other Irish journalist murdered in the course of their work. Today, Martin O'Hagan's inquest heard how he was shot dead by a Loyalist death squad after writing repeatedly in the Sunday World about their drug-dealing activities in September 2001.

Over five years on, not a single person has been arrested for the murder, despite strong suggestions from the NUJ that the police know who his killers are. Why won't they arrest them? They say they have insufficient evidence. The NUJ says the killers were informers and are being protected by the very people who should be arresting them.

Where is Martin O'Hagan's Hollywood movie? Where is the manhunt for his killers? Most importantly, where is the public outcry?

Martin O'Hagan RIP.