Tribunal told 'notice was too short'

A retired Garda chief superintendent, who spent a quarter of a century combating the IRA in the Border region, has told the Smithwick Tribunal he does not believe the assassination of two RUC officers could have been carried out with 90 minutes notice.

Former Chief Supt Michael Staunton told the tribunal visits by RUC Chief Supt Bob Buchanan to Dundalk and other Border Garda stations, were a regular event in early 1989.

He said Mr Buchanan's red, Northern-registered Vauxhaul Cavalier, would have been a notable sight as it travelled through rural, unapproved Border crossings, or when parked outside Dundalk Garda station.

The tribunal has heard Mr Buchanan and RUC Chief Supt Harry Breen arrived at Dundalk Garda station sometime around 2.30pm on March 20th, 1989 and having left about an hour later were ambushed and killed on the Edenappa Road in south Armagh just before 4pm.

Mr Staunton said even with good surveillance and planning in place, he believed it unlikely the IRA would have been able to mobilise an assassination unit, take guns and other equipment out of hiding and be on the right road, at the right time, to mount the ambush, within 90 minutes of having been notified the RUC men were in Dundalk.

The Smithwick Tribunal is inquiring into suggestions that there was collusion by a member of An Garda Síochána or other agents of the State in the killing of the two RUC officers.

Mr Staunton, who retired from the Garda in the 1990s, said he had did not recall any discussion in Dundalk in the 1980s that tended to identify any officer as being an IRA mole. But because the officers had been assassinated, the suggestion that there could be a mole was an avenue that had to be eliminated.