An alleged IRA informer told the Morris tribunal she was blackmailed by a detective garda into planting evidence, including bullets, for other gardaí to find in Co Donegal.
Ms Adrienne McGlinchey, who has denied she was an IRA informer or a member of the organisation, said Det Garda Noel McMahon told her what to do and say.
She said Det Garda McMahon said she would be prosecuted by other gardaí for a cheque fraud. She then continued to get drawn in by blackmail until she once dropped a bag with 200 bullets given to her by Garda McMahon for gardaí to find. She also planted bags of fertiliser and apparent bomb-making equipment. It went on for three years.
"It was the most terrible time in my life. I was threatened by them. I was frightened of them," Ms McGlinchey said.
She was arrested for the first time in July 1991, when she went with her friend, Ms Yvonne Devine, to a house to ask painters from Northern Ireland to take scaffolding down. There was nobody there, but after they were arrested at a checkpoint. She thought maybe the house was under surveillance. That month she was arrested again on drink offences.
The first real contact she had with Garda McMahon was in the grounds of a convent in Buncrana, which was across the road from her flat. Ms Devine's mother had called looking for her and gardaí arrived.
Ms McGlinchey said she ran out the back and across to the convent. The next thing, Garda McMahon drove in right on top of her. She was afraid because she had taken cheque books from the family business when she fell out with her mother and sister.
Garda McMahon told her not to worry. He told her to wait and he would make sure the other gardaí went and he would meet her the following evening.
"There I was, I've done all this and spent the cheques, and somebody comes along and says: 'I'll get them (the gardaí) away from you'. He was like a saviour at the time," Ms McGlinchey said.
She met Garda McMahon and Det Garda Danny Kelly, and they drove to a hotel in Ballyliffen. They all had a lot of drink. At one point, Garda Kelly went to talk to somebody and when he came back he told her it was her round and as she had no money, she only had two blank cheques.
"Noel McMahon grabbed the cheque and said something like: 'Oh my God, I'm trying to get you off that'." He then told her to meet him the next day but not to tell Garda Kelly.
On that occasion, they met and he drove her out the road. The conversation was that he needed information, and when she said she did not have any, he said: "You're going to get done, you're going to get prosecuted."
Ms McGlinchey said she was crying. Garda McMahon told her Garda Kelly had been annoyed when she got the cheques out. Garda McMahon said she would meet Garda Kelly the next day and tell him that a person was staying at a house in Buncrana which was an IRA safe house.
"All I had to do was tell the story and I wasn't going to get done for these cheques," she said. Garda McMahon said he would keep gardaí away from her.
Mr Peter Charleton SC, for the tribunal, said she was to pretend she was an IRA informer.
"I went off the rails with the cheque book, and there was no way back. I can't go home because of the family, and there is someone who said: 'I will stop this happening to you'," Ms McGlinchey said.
Garda McMahon said Garda Kelly was getting suspicious because she was not being seen with republicans and so he asked her to be seen near the house. He also asked that Ms Devine should be with her.
Mr Charleton said Ms Devine may well be a very responsible person and nobody could choose their relations but her uncle was Pearse McCauley, who was involved in terrorist acts and broke out of Brixton Prison. Ms McGlinchey said Ms Devine was not a republican.
Mr Charleton said it started with the cheques, then went on to carrying bags and on another occasion she dropped the bag with 200 bullets. At this time, she made it up with her family so the cheques were no longer a problem, but Garda McMahon told her her fingerprints were all over the bullets.