Analysis: The words "lies" and "deceit" featured on the opening day of the Morris Tribunal, writes Carol Coulter, Legal Affairs Correspondent
"People have lied in relation to virtually every paragraph of the terms of reference [of this tribunal]." Mr Peter Charleton SC was in no doubt about the difficulties facing the Morris Tribunal in attempting to get at the truth of what happened in Donegal in the mid-1990s.
The tribunal was set up following two other inquiries by a Garda assistant commissioner, Mr Kevin Carty, into allegations of serious misconduct surrounding the death of Mr Richie Barron and, separately, the alleged planting of explosives by members of the Garda.
Sections of the Carty report are quoted in Mr Charleton's opening statement, the first time any of it has been published in detail.
Most tellingly, Mr Carty wrote that the refusal of two gardaí to co-operate with his investigation into the death of Mr Barron, coupled with the "obdurate attitude" of other members of the force, "leads to the unmistakable conclusion that the full truth remains yet to be uncovered".
So, following a further internal inquiry and a report from a senior counsel, the Government decided a tribunal was necessary.
A tribunal of inquiry has the powers of the High Court. It can compel witnesses to appear before it and answer questions, or face contempt of court proceedings.
Mr Charleton has already suggested to Mr Justice Morris, the tribunal's chairman, that he may have to use these powers, especially in relation to the gardaí who refused to give an account of their movements on the night Mr Barron was killed. But he did not reach this portion of the terms of reference yesterday.
Most of the day was instead taken up with the allegation that explosives and "subversive paraphernalia" had been planted in the early 1990s by a woman closely associated with two members of the Donegal gardaí, Det Garda Noel McMahon and Supt Kevin Lennon.
They claimed that she was an informer from the IRA.
The two issues are linked. Ms Adrienne McGlinchey has claimed that Det Garda McMahon told her two gardaí killed Mr Barron.
"Two gardaí have consistently refused to give . . . account of their respective activities on the night Richard Barron was killed," wrote Mr Carty in his report.
As Mr Charleton examined the activities of Ms McGlinchey, along with her involvement with Garda McMahon and Supt Lennon, an extraordinary picture emerges.
On the one hand, the two members of the force kept making finds of suspicious materials, including ground-up fertiliser and other bomb-making equipment.
This culminated, in July 1994, in a letter from a minister of state in the Northern Ireland Office, Sir John Wheeler, congratulating the then minister for justice, Ms Máire Geoghegan-Quinn, on a find, which was passed to the Garda Commissioner.
According to the two gardaí, these finds resulted from their handling of Ms McGlinchey.
But the picture which emerges from other accounts of the activities of Ms McGlinchey is of an attention-seeking young woman whom the IRA would have nothing to do with.
She shared a flat in Buncrana with another young woman, Ms Yvonne Devine, then aged 16. Ms Devine described her to Mr Carty in the following terms: "IRA considered her a mad woman. Adrienne \ besotted by gardaí with big brown eyes . . . \ confirms the grinding of fertiliser in flat with coffee-grinders."
She was often involved in activities of an attention-seeking nature, running around with plastic bags containing metal tubes, radios and other objects, using taxis to transport them from one place to another, while warning the taxi-driver not to admit to having seen her, pouring a white substance out of her skylight window while making a lot of noise.
She came to the attention of various members of the Garda in Donegal, but they were all warned not to proceed against her or charge her.
More seriously, on July 2nd 1993, a 100lb bomb exploded in Strabane.
Both Ms McGlinchey and Garda McMahon's estranged wife, Ms Sheenagh McMahon, claim that this bomb was planted by Ms McGlinchey, with the collusion or, possibly, the active participation, of Garda McMahon himself.
Ms McGlinchey was never charged with any offence.
Nor were any of the "finds" forensically examined, and no prosecutions followed any of them.
Allegations of planting these items are strenuously denied by Garda McMahon and Supt Lennon.
Nonetheless, what emerged from yesterday's opening remarks is that there was something very odd about their relationship with Ms McGlinchey.
No one involved in dealing with the IRA - except, apparently, for the two gardaí - believed for a moment that she was an IRA member.
Many of those who knew her thought she was unreliable and possibly disturbed.
Yet she was protected from the consequences of her actions by very senior figures in the Garda.
Garda McMahon and Supt Lennon will have to explain this relationship in detail when they give their evidence to the tribunal.