The Garda scene commander at the Abbeylara siege went beyond training guidelines in also appointing himself as the investigation officer, the chairman of the Barr tribunal said yesterday.
Mr Justice Barr was questioning Supt Joseph Shelly on appointing himself the investigation officer to gather information and intelligence about Mr John Carthy.
Supt Shelly said he believed he had complied with the guidelines.
Mr Carthy was fatally shot in April 2000 when he left his house in Abbeylara, Co Longford, after the siege.
The chairman asked Supt Shelly if he had tried to comply with the training guidelines as far as possible.
Supt Shelly said he interpreted the training guidelines as best he could and believed what he did was correct.
The chairman said there was no difficulty in appointing someone particularly to act as investigator, to take that responsibility, as the guidelines indicated should happen.
"Why not follow the guidelines if it's quite possible and presents no difficulty to actually follow them?" Mr Justice Barr asked.
Supt Shelly replied: "I felt I did."
The chairman said: "You took on the job of that particular role yourself, didn't you? You should have appointed someone else, according to the guidelines."
Supt Shelly said his interpretation was that it was open to him to do that. That was a decision he made himself. He felt it was the correct decision.
The chairman continued: "But why ignore the guidelines?"
Supt Shelly said : "I don't mean I ignored them, I made the decision to take the role on myself. I felt that I was operating within the guidelines in doing that. I was comfortable in adopting that role."
The chairman said: "But you were outside the guidelines. You were not complying with the guidelines of having a separate officer to deal with that particular problem."
Supt Shelly said he believed he was adhering to the guidelines. He added that, as he had already mentioned with regard to the training and guidelines, he understood that nothing was written in stone.