A woman forced to take cover with five young children as armed gardaí took on members of the Real IRA and shot one of them dead 17 years ago was later visited by senior gardaí and told to “stay quiet”, a commission of investigation into the fatal shooting has been told.
Care worker Aisling Gray told a public hearing of the Commission of Investigation into the shooting dead by the Garda of Rónán Mac Lochlainn (28), of Ballymun, Dublin, during a botched robbery in May 1998, that she was intimidated when two detective chief superintendents called to her home.
She said they asked her if she knew anyone in the IRA and it was put it to her that she would now stay quiet about complaints she had outlined in a letter to her then local representative Ivor Callely, then a Fianna Fáil TD.
“They told me I was lucky to be alive, that the people involved were the same people who did the Omagh bomb,” she said of the meeting in her home in August 1998, three months after the shooting in Wicklow and just two days after the Omagh bomb.
‘I felt very intimidated’
“I was terrified, I felt very intimidated. I was on the couch and they seemed to be towering over me.
“They told me they hoped they wouldn’t be hearing any more about the incident. They said, ‘We’re not going to hear any more about this, are we?’
“I was to be quiet and not to talk about it; that’s what I took from it.”
Ms Gray told Hugh Hartnett SC, for the dead man’s family and his partner Grainne Nic Gib, that she had written to Mr Callely because she was concerned about a number of matters that had unfolded on the day of the incident.
The botched robbery of a Securicor van by the Real IRA had been carried out on the late afternoon of Friday, May 1st, when there was heavy traffic on the Wexford-bound road on what was a bank holiday weekend.
Garda members were also engaged in industrial action on the day, calling in sick in a protest that became known as the “blue flu”.
In her correspondence to Mr Callely, she expressed concern that she had heard “talk” that the Garda knew in advance the gang was armed and was about to commit a crime, but had not stopped it.
However, she accepted under cross-examination from Michael Durack SC, for Garda members and former members, that her knowledge in that regard came simply from “talk” among work colleagues in the days that followed.
The official report drawn up recording the visit by the two senior officers to her home stated it had been explained to Ms Gray that the Garda had no prior knowledge of the Real IRA gang’s intentions on the day.
However, she did not recall that being discussed, though she accepted it may have been said.
Victim support
She also had no recall of an offer of victim support during the visit from the two officers.
“I don’t recall that being discussed and I’m sure if it was discussed I would have raised it,” she said.
It was also put to her by Darragh Hayes BL, for the commission, that the Garda report of the meeting noted she was satisfied with the Garda responses to her complaints and wished to take the matter no further.
“I don’t recall saying that and I don’t think I would have said that,” she replied.
Ms Gray also disagreed with a section of the report that stated she had no cause to be fearful during her meeting with the two senior officers.
“Well, I disagree with him,” she said in relation to the detective chief superintendent who wrote up the report.
In her letter of complaint to Mr Callely, Ms Gray also said she believed members of the reserve Defence Forces formed part of the Garda group at the scene of the crime.
She said she was given very little assistance by gardaí present, despite caring for five children who then ranged in age from two years to 12 years.
She said when she was taken from the area by a garda in a patrol car, she was left outside a boarded-up hotel and was forced to start walking until she found a pub where she was given food and other assistance.
Ms Gray said she was driving from Ballinteer, south Dublin, to Redcross, Co Wicklow, for a weekend away when the “traumatic” events began.
Her car, a station wagon, came to a halt at an area known as Cullenmore bends near Ashford, Co Wicklow.
Live gunfire
She could hear what she thought were paintball guns being fired, though in fact the sound was of live gunfire.
Gardaí had opened fire on Real IRA members as they tried to rob a Securicor van in the middle of bank holiday traffic on the road.
Ms Gray said she saw a man who she believed had a gun get into a green Mazda at the scene after he got an elderly couple out of the car.
She said the raider then drove off through the rest of the traffic stopped at the scene.
She rearranged the children in the back of her car and told the elderly couple to sit into her car.
“I remember the elderly woman telling me her husband had just had a treble bypass,” she said.
Having been told initially to stay in her car, she was then told to leave it at the scene with the keys inside.
However, as she began walking on the road with the five children, there were warning shouts for her to “get down”.
She lay down on the road with the children because it was believed another gang member was still at large.
She was eventually taken away and brought to a boarded-up hotel “by mistake”, but walked to the nearby Chester Beatty Pub in Ashford, where refreshments had been organised by the Garda for all members of the public who had been caught up at the scene.
The commission, under Mary Rose Gearty SC, was established 14 months ago by the Government and began public hearings on Tuesday.
