Man says he was offered money to link gardai to explosives haul

MORRIS TRIBUNAL: The Morris Tribunal has heard claims that Ms Adrienne McGlinchey tried to bribe her friend's brother to back…

MORRIS TRIBUNAL: The Morris Tribunal has heard claims that Ms Adrienne McGlinchey tried to bribe her friend's brother to back her story to the tribunal.

Mr Pearse Devine, brother of Ms Yvonne Devine, said Ms McGlinchey asked him to back her story to the tribunal and she would "see him right" when she got a big compensation claim from the State.

Sometime in 2000 or 2001, he said Ms McGlinchey told him her solicitor was having trouble believing her story that her Garda boyfriend and two named gardaí had stored explosives materials in her mother's shed.

Mr Devine said Ms McGlinchey asked him to meet her solicitor in Dublin and make a statement saying he was smoking a cigarette outside her house and saw two named gardaí at the shed.

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She claimed these two gardaí had put in a false report about his family in connection with his uncle, prisoner Pearse McAuley, and this was a way of getting "one up" on them. He said Ms McGlinchey told him she would make a claim against the State for harassment and expected to get over €1 million in compensation.

If he helped her, she would see him right when she got her money, he said.

Mr Devine said she later approached him in Dunnes Stores and said that "Yvonne better watch her mouth". When he told her Yvonne had nothing to hide, he said she got agitated and said "your sister better start playing ball or she would drag them all into it".

Ms McGlinchey claimed Mr Devine had put a baking tray of fertiliser into the attic of her restaurant. "No, never happened," he said. He said his family was very upset when Yvonne left home to live with Ms McGlinchey, first in a tent, and later in the flat in Buncrana.

He said she had left home partly because the family was being harassed by gardaí before and after the escape of her uncle, Pearse McAuley from Brixton Prison. He is serving 14 years for the manslaughter of Det Garda Jerry McCabe.

The tribunal continues this morning.

Alison Healy

Alison Healy

Alison Healy is a contributor to The Irish Times