A former assistant Garda commissioner has questioned the credibility and reliability of a key witness whose testimony in large part led to the establishment of the Smithwick Tribunal.
Joe Egan told the tribunal this morning that IRA member Peter Keeley, who was known to him as Kevin Fulton, had supplied misleading information to him in the past.
Mr Egan said he had met Keeley and received information from him that was later not found to be sound when it was investigated.
Keeley, who is from Newry, claims he was a British army agent who served undercover in the IRA. He gave information to former Canadian supreme court judge Peter Cory that informed his recommendation to establish the tribunal.
The tribunal is inquiring into suggestions that Garda members in Dundalk colluded with the IRA in the fatal shootings of two RUC officers on March 20th, 1989.
Chief Supt Harry Breen and Supt Bob Buchanan were killed minutes after they left a meeting in Dundalk Garda station.
Mr Cory reviewed the murders in 2003 and concluded the Provisional IRA had not needed Garda information to mount the fatal ambush in 1989. However, he drew attention to two intelligence reports that referred to a Garda leak at Dundalk and suggested this issue should be investigated.
Keeley’s suggestion to Mr Cory that a Garda detective sergeant Owen Corrigan had met IRA member Patrick Joseph “Mooch” Blair was one of the reasons the former judge recommended a tribunal to investigate the collusion claims.
Mr Corrigan has strenuously denied the claims and has been granted legal representation at the Tribunal.
Mr Blair was granted legal representation by the tribunal this morning.
During his evidence today Mr Egan said gardai shared information with the RUC and MI5. The Garda also had contact with British army intelligence personal in the North via the RUC.
Mr Egan said that the South Armagh unit of the IRA could have arranged the ambush within twenty to thirty minutes of being told of the RUC men's arrival in the station.