A witness at the Morris tribunal was yesterday accused of fabricating evidence on behalf of fellow witness and alleged Garda informer Ms Adrienne McGlinchey.
Ms Ciara McLaughlin denied she lied. Under cross-examination by Mr Paul Murphy BL, for Det Garda Noel McMahon, she said she met Ms McGlinchey after she had given statements to the Carty inquiry in 1999 and 2000. When the two women met, Ms McLaughlin was living in a St Vincent de Paul hostel in Donegal.
She had a history of excessive use of cannabis and alcohol. She had voluntarily placed her children into foster care because: "I could not look after myself at the time never mind children."
Ms McGlinchey had helped her organise a house to stay in and later helped her to overcome her drug and alcohol problems. She also offered support when Ms McLaughlin felt ready to take care of her children again.
She agreed she owed Ms McGlinchey a debt but denied she was now fabricating evidence on her behalf. Mr Murphy put it to Ms McLaughlin that she and Ms McGlinchey had agreed what evidence she should give to the tribunal.
"No, we never discussed that," Ms McLaughlin said.
Mr Murphy also claimed that when Ms McLaughlin had given her statements to the Carty inquiry about events in Buncrana she had been honest in her recollections. But by the time she was contacted by the Morris tribunal her situation had changed in that she was now indebted to Ms McGlinchey.
Ms McLaughlin claims she was "high as a kite" on cannabis when she spoke to the Carty team.
"If you just took one look at me, unless you were pure thick, you would have known." She claims her statement to the Carty team has been added to, that there are a number of things in her statement which she did not say. The Carty team had given her husband "£20 to go and get drunk before he gave his statement" to them, she claimed.
Ms McLaughlin said Ms McGlinchey told her a "Provo", named in evidence as Mr B, was her boyfriend in 1994 when both women lived at the Crescent in Buncrana. Ms McLaughlin claims Mr B and Det Garda McMahon are the same person.
Ms McLaughlin also said she saw Det Garda McMahon and Supt Kevin Lennon carrying heavy bags "the same shape as a cement bag" from a house in the Crescent, Buncrana.
The two men had carried the bags "three or four times" from the home of Ms Sheenagh McMahon's grandmother at the Crescent, Ms McLaughlin said. Ms Sheenagh McMahon is the estranged wife of Det Garda McMahon.
Ms McLaughlin conceded that when she went to the Crescent with tribunal investigator Mr Michael Finn to point out the house where she had seen Det Garda McMahon and Supt Lennon leaving, she had identified the wrong house, one not occupied by Ms Sheenagh McMahon's grandmother. However, she strongly denied Ms McGlinchey had told her to lie and tell the tribunal investigators she saw Det Garda McMahon and Supt Lennon carrying bags.
"I know what I seen sir, I seen them carrying bags, that's it. I'm not taking it back, they were there," she said.
Both Det Garda McMahon and Supt Lennon are accused of planting material that could be used as explosives. They deny the allegation.
