Garda says IRA mole not focus of inquiry

A SENIOR garda intelligence officer has clashed with the Smithwick Tribunal over the purpose of a Garda inquiry in the immediate aftermath of the killing of two RUC officers.

Chief Supt Peter Kirwan yesterday told the tribunal the inquiry had been undertaken by then assistant commissioner Ned O’Dea to look into “the circumstances and arrangements” surrounding the visit of the RUC officers to Dundalk Garda station. But Mr Kirwan did not agree with a suggestion by Justin Dillon SC, for the tribunal, that the inquiry was in fact looking into whether there was an IRA mole at the station.

Chief Supt Harry Breen and Supt Bob Buchanan of the RUC were killed in an IRA ambush in south Armagh minutes after they left Dundalk Garda station in March 1989. The tribunal is inquiring into suggestions that members of the Garda in Dundalk colluded with the IRA in the ambush.

Mr Kirwan yesterday told Judge Peter Smithwick there were many more IRA killings and operations around the time and the issue of collusion had not been raised in relation to these.

Mr Dillon produced an Irish Press article, published on the day after Mr Breen and Mr Buchanan were killed, which raised what it said were “renewed” suspicions of Garda involvement in a number of IRA killings. But Mr Kirwan said “the bodies of the two RUC officers probably hadn’t been removed” when the article was written. He said he did not see how a headline in such circumstances “could be seen as informed comment”.

Mr Kirwan said a conclusion in a Garda report that Mr Breen felt unable to trust Garda Owen Corrigan of Dundalk Garda station, believing Mr Corrigan to be in the pay of a senior IRA smuggler, was reported using the words “Mr Breen felt”. It was just “a feeling” on Mr Breen’s part, he said.