The niece of an IRA member, Pearse McCauley, was arrested 10 times in the early 1990s and was stopped by gardaí about 100 times in Co Donegal, the Morris tribunal was told yesterday.
Ms Yvonne Devine said she thought at the time she was being arrested because of her relatives as the gardaí always asked about them and that it had nothing to do with Ms Adrienne McGlinchey. She had first been arrested in July 1991, the day after her uncle had escaped from Brixton Prison.
"There wasn't a week went by without being stopped and searched and it became the norm," she said.
Ms Devine said she did not realise that the arrests were due to anything Ms McGlinchey was doing. She thought it was bad judgment on the part of the gardaí. They thought she was a terrorist.
There were about 10 arrests, and she could not remember every single time she was arrested or stopped.
The chairman asked her if she had any memory of any specific incidents of arrest.
Twice she was arrested walking up a Buncrana street. There was a similar time she was arrested in Buncrana main street. There was a time in Lifford and another when she was arrested coming out of her apartment.
Once Ms McGlinchey telephoned from Burnfoot Garda station, telling her she was arrested. Ms McGlinchey asked if she could drop by to collect her and when she did she was arrested, too. There were a few more but she could not remember them, Ms Devine said.
She had no recollection of being arrested the time Ms McGlinchey had two walkie-talkies in Letterkenny.