THE LATE Supt Bob Buchanan “was really setting himself up” by repeatedly driving across the Border in his own car, a former assistant Garda commissioner told the Smithwick Tribunal yesterday.
Ned O’Dea, who prepared a report on the murders of Supt Buchanan and fellow RUC officer Chief Supt Harry Breen after the killings, said he would not have dreamt of behaving in the way Supt Buchanan did.
The tribunal is inquiring into suggestions of collusion between members of the Garda, or other employees of the State, in the fatal shooting of the two RUC officers on March 20th, 1989.
Mr O’Dea said Supt Buchanan had driven back and forth across the Border in his own car repeatedly without changing plates or taking proper precautions. He said the IRA did not need anyone to tell it about his movements.
“They would have known from their own resources,” he said.
He told the tribunal he had uncovered an IRA file on himself which included details of his family, his car and even his golf handicap.
Mr O’Dea also defended retired Det Sgt Owen Corrigan, who was accused by former MI5 agent Peter Keeley of being an IRA mole. He said Mr Corrigan was a brave officer in Dundalk.
“There is no way, I believe, he would tip off the IRA,” he said. “I have no doubt in my mind as to his loyalty to the force.”
Justin Dillon SC, for the tribunal, highlighted minutes of a government meeting in the wake of the killings when then minister for justice Gerard Collins said he would commission a report on the deaths.
He also noted Mr Collins had a report going into that meeting, but the tribunal had so far been unable to find it.
He said Mr Collins might be able to help them with that, although he had not yet been able to give evidence.
Mr Dillon questioned Mr O’Dea about the report he produced for the government in which he concluded there was no leak from Dundalk Garda station.
Mr Dillon suggested the report was not comprehensive but Mr O’Dea denied that.
Under cross-examination, he also denied the report was a whitewash.
Earlier yesterday, retired Det Sgt Tom Fox, who had called a key witness a “spacer” last week, said he had got the wrong man.
Mr Fox had said MI5 agent Peter Keeley was regarded as “a spacer” and that he was “a person who could not be trusted”.
Mr Keeley had alleged Mr Corrigan had passed information on to the IRA that led to the murder of two RUC officers.
Yesterday, after he was shown a photograph of Mr Keeley, who used the pseudonym Kevin Fulton when he spoke to journalists, Mr Fox said he was not the person he had been referring to.
“I never saw that man in my life,” he told Judge Peter Smithwick.
Tribunal hearings will resume on September 1st.
