Dundalk Garda records missing, tribunal hears

TELEPHONE RECORDS and diaries for Dundalk Garda station for March 20th, 1989, have gone missing, the Smithwick Tribunal was told yesterday.

March 20th, 1989, was the day RUC Chief Supt Harry Breen and Supt Bob Buchanan were killed in south Armagh by the IRA as they returned to Northern Ireland, having attended a meeting with their Garda counterparts in Dundalk Garda station. The tribunal is inquiring into suggestions that members of An Garda Síochána or other employees of the State colluded in the killings.

For the Garda, senior counsel Michael Durack told Mr Justice Peter Smithwick that the Garda Commissioner would provide the tribunal with a list of missing documents relating to the operation of Dundalk Garda station in the days surrounding the killings.

Former Dundalk garda Regina McArdle said records of telephone calls to and from the station, including dates and durations of calls, had been kept as a matter of routine. She was surprised the records had gone missing.

She told James McGuill, solicitor for Sgt Finbarr Hickey, that the diaries held a record of all gardaí on duty and tasks assigned to them daily. She agreed that even when members of the force came in “irregularly” their presence and movements in the station would be recorded and that the diary was “a particularly important contemporaneous record”.

The tribunal also heard sharp exchanges in relation to the naming of Det Sgt Owen Corrigan as an officer in Dundalk who was a suspected IRA mole.

Retired garda superintendent Tom Connolly said he was informed of suspicions over a then-serving member in Dundalk. He said he had been warned about the officer before he transferred to Dundalk. After he had arrived in Dundalk, he was warned about the officer by the RUC.

Mr Connolly had previously agreed with the tribunal not to mention the member’s name. But a few minutes into his evidence yesterday he said: “Owen Corrigan is the man we are talking about.” Asked if he had not heard the caution not to name anybody, he said: “I am afraid I didn’t because I have a hearing problem.”

Senior counsel Jim O’Callagahan, for Det Sgt Corrigan, accused Mr Connolly of “deliberately and maliciously putting my client’s name out into the public domain”. Mr Connolly said: “I completely deny that.”

Retired Garda chief superintendent Michael Bohan said he had no idea how the name of Det Sgt Corrigan first came to be mentioned in rumours of an IRA mole. He said Det Sgt Corrigan was “a loyal, efficient and dedicated officer” and one who had solved “serious outrages” in the area. He said Det Sgt Corrigan was known for his strong anti-IRA stance. Det Sgt Corrigan has consistently denied the allegations.

The tribunal continues today.