Evidence linking garda to IRA tip-off to be 'refuted'

ALLEGATIONS THAT a detective sergeant left Dundalk Garda station to telephone the IRA and alert them to the presence of two RUC men in March 1989 are to be “vigorously” refuted, the Smithwick Tribunal heard yesterday.

The tribunal was told British army agent Kevin Fulton (also known as Peter Keeley) who served undercover in the IRA, would give evidence that his IRA commander told him Det Sgt Owen Corrigan of the Dundalk Garda had made the tip-off phone call.

RUC officers Supt Bob Buchanan and Chief Supt Harry Breen were killed in an IRA ambush minutes after leaving Dundalk Garda station on March 20th, 1989. The Smithwick Tribunal is inquiring into suggestions that members of the Garda or other employees of the State colluded in the killings.

Mr Corrigan has consistently denied he was an IRA mole in the Garda in Dundalk, and yesterday his counsel at the tribunal senior counsel Jim O’Callaghan said the evidence of Mr Fulton would be strenuously rejected.

Mr O’Callaghan said while Mr Fulton’s allegation had been aired in an earlier inquiry held by Canadian judge Peter Cory, it was untrue and he would be “vigorously refuting this when Mr Fulton gives evidence”.

Supporting evidence for Mr Corrigan was given by former garda Laurence Crowe, who said he had been on “hundreds” of operations against criminals and subversives with then Det Sgt Corrigan and “never once did we hold an operation that was compromised”.

Mr Crowe said it was highly likely the IRA had been watching RUC visits to Dundalk Garda station for some time. He said it was very likely the RUC men were being monitored on their visits south, and the IRA could easily cover either the main route back to Newry or the Edenappa Road through south Armagh where the killings took place.

Former sergeant Leo Colton told the tribunal he made a statement within two days of the killings in which he said he had seen a car and driver acting suspiciously in the vicinity of the Garda station just hours before the killings.

Mr Colton recalled a grey Vauxhall car coming into the Garda compound and driving slowly past a number of parked vehicles. He said the driver, a pale man wearing a shirt and with black curly hair had been looking at each car as he passed and appeared to be searching for some vehicle.

Within two days Mr Colton had made a formal statement detailing the registration number of the car as EIB 32?? where the question marks represented numerals he could not recall. The tribunal heard the car has never been traced.

However, senior counsel for the tribunal Justin Dillon wondered why a trained Garda with more then 30 years’ experience could not remember two of just four numerals in the registration, when making his a formal statement at the time.

Mr Dillon repeatedly put it to Mr Colton: “Did this car exist at all?”

In a series of terse exchanges, Mr Colton replied he had not imagined the car, but it may have had false plates. The tribunal continues today.