THE CHAIRMAN of the Smithwick Tribunal has expressed disappointment that a former Garda assistant commissioner did not attend to give evidence yesterday despite being issued a summons and other attempts to contact him since March.
Kevin Carty was a detective inspector at the time of the murders of two senior RUC officers in March 1989. He aided the then assistant commissioner Ned O’Dea in a subsequent investigation. This inquired into the allegation that a mole within Dundalk Garda station provided information to the IRA, resulting in the murders of the two RUC officers.
It is this long-standing suggestion that led to the setting up of the Smithwick Tribunal in 2005 to investigate whether a garda or gardaí at Dundalk Garda station colluded with the IRA prior to the murders. Mr Justice Peter Smithwick yesterday expressed his disappointment that Mr Carty had not attended, adding that for a “very senior officer to treat correspondence with the tribunal with that sort of contempt is very, very wrong”.
He said Mr Carty should be given another opportunity to appear, but added that he would take a “very, very strong view” if Mr Carty did not do so.
Mary Laverty, senior counsel for the tribunal, said that the last contact the tribunal had with Mr Carty was in 2007 when he made a statement to the tribunal. At this time he was living in Vienna in Austria.
A viaticum, which covers travel expenses, had not yet been extended to Mr Carty, Ms Laverty told the tribunal.
Of the tribunal’s dealings with Mr Carty, Ms Laverty said seven attempts had been made to contact the witness, one of which was a summons to attend the tribunal. The correspondence had been sent to an address in Celbridge, Kildare, since March of this year but that there has been no response from Mr Carty to the tribunal since.
On two occasions since March registered letters were delivered to the Kildare address and signed variously by a Kevin Carty and K Carty, and that these signatures matched each other.
Attempts will now be made to contact Mr Carty with a view to him appearing at the tribunal on September 27th.
In 1999 Mr Carty led an inquiry into allegations of Garda wrongdoing which preceded the Morris tribunal. In 2003 he was appointed as a special adviser to the independent panel on the safety and security of UN personnel in Iraq, which was tasked to examine the implications for the UN security system arising out of the bomb attack on the UN headquarters in Baghdad on August 19th, 2003.
Chief Supt Harry Breen and Supt Bob Buchanan were killed in an ambush in south Armagh minutes after leaving the Dundalk station on March 20th, 1989. They were ambushed as they were driving along a narrow country road near Jonesboro across the border in Co Armagh.
Sgt James Kilcoyne, then a garda based in Omeath, Co Louth, between 1988 and 1991, also addressed the tribunal yesterday. In his evidence he said it was his personal opinion that the IRA was not going to spend “365 days of the year waiting for somebody to arrive 24 hours a day” but said he was not expressing the opinion that someone in Dundalk Garda station passed on this information to the IRA.