TWO Garda detectives ordered by the High Court to give the name of an informant to the Garda authorities have now given a name. The man named as the informant has been dead for a year.
The two drug squad detectives had refused to identify the informant who led them to search a Dublin hotel and the home of a hotel employee.
No drugs were found but the searches led to lengthy legal actions including one in which the detectives claimed they were not obliged to tell the Garda Commissioner the name of their informant.
The High Court disagreed, and in March Mr Justice Costello directed the two to accede to the Commissioner's instruction that they name the informant.
The two detectives have since told a Garda chief superintendent, acting on behalf of the Commissioner, that the man who gave them information which led to the searches is now dead.
The man they named was a low level figure in Dublin's criminal underworld, described by one source as being "on the fringes of criminal activity".
The development appears to end the legal actions and investigations prompted by a search of Sachs Hotel on Morehampton Road, Dublin, in September 1988.
The two detectives, Gardai Colm Church and Raymond Murray, carried out a search there and at the home of Ms Brenda Flood, a hotel employee.
The searches were carried out under a warrant on the basis of confidential information from an informant.
The owner of the hotel, Mr Philip Smyth, told Det Garda Church he believed the information was given maliciously and demanded to be told the name of the informant. The detective refused.
In 1991, through his company Genport (which operates the hotel), Mr Smyth started proceedings against the two detectives, as did Ms Flood.
The then Garda commissioner, Mr Patrick Culligan, appointed a chief superintendent to investigate whether a crime had been committed by someone maliciously giving false information to the gardai.
The Commissioner made an order in 1993 requiring the detectives to disclose the informant's name to a chief superintendent, saying this was necessary "to ensure proper control and direction of the force".
Solicitors for the detectives replied that they would pass on the informant's name only if directed to do so by the High Court.
Mr Justice Costello ruled last March that the Commissioner was within his rights to require that he be told the name.
The action by Mr Smyth and Ms Flood against the gardai involved, the Garda Commissioner, the State and the Attorney General was settled last week. Mr Smyth's company, Genport, sued for damages for trespass, while Ms Flood had sued for damages for breach of her constitutional rights and false imprisonment.
In court a lawyer for the detectives read a statement regretting the distress and inconvenience caused to Ms Flood while they were acting in the course of their duty, and a lawyer for the Commissioner, the State and the Attorney General joined in recognising that she was a person of the utmost good character and always had been.
He said sometimes gardai, carrying out their duties in good faith, mounted searches "as a result of false information, as it was in this case".
Det Garda Church was not available to comment. Det Garda Murray told The Irish Times he did not want to comment on the case.