The radio interview which encouraged Mr John Carthy to leave his house, transmitted shortly before he was shot dead by gardaí, will be heard by the Barr tribunal on Monday morning.
Mr John Rogers, counsel for the gardaí, broke from questioning former chief supt Patrick Tansey yesterday to insist that the interview be heard because of its "vital significance" to the evidence. The interview, which was first alluded to during the evidence of Supt Joseph Shelly on Tuesday, was broadcast on RTÉ's Five Seven Live radio programme on the day of the killing.
It featured a woman, not yet named, making a plea for Mr Carthy to leave the house, saying: "John come out, we love you."
At 5.45 p.m., Mr Carthy emerged from the house and was shot dead by gardaí.
The woman spoke of matters "of a deeply personal nature to John", Mr Rogers said.
The interview occurred without the knowledge or support of the Garda and was aired "contemporaneously" with Mr Carthy's emergence from the house.
"This was a vital intrusion into the process that Mr Jackson [ERU negotiator] was undertaking at the same time and a vital component of what was affecting John's state of mind," said Mr Rogers.
The chair of the tribunal, Judge Robert Barr, agreed that the interview could be separated from other media broadcasts relating to the Abbeylara siege and heard on Tuesday. Further broadcasts will be aired later in the evidence.
Earlier yesterday, Mr Tansey told the tribunal that he had heard a member of the Garda say "John, don't go, don't go" moments after the shooting. The tribunal heard how he had disagreed with other senior gardaí on how Mr Carthy should be dealt with if he had not been shot.
Mr Tansey, who was divisional chief supt of Longford/Westmeath at the time of the incident, told the tribunal that he had wanted Mr Carthy detained under the Mental Treatment Act, if he had been safely apprehended by gardaí. "I was in favour of proceeding under the Mental Treatment Act, 1945, not the Firearms Act, but Assistant Commissioner Hickey was of a different view."
It was his opinion, Mr Tansey said, that John should have medical treatment first and that charges could be brought at a later stage. However he said both the assistant commissioner and the scene commander, Supt Joseph Shelly, wanted Mr Carthy arrested under firearms charges.
The tribunal adjourned until Tuesday.
