Garda witness denies that scene of fatal shooting was ‘chaotic’

A Garda would do “exactly the same thing” if an attempted robbery in which Real IRA man Rónán MacLochlainn was shot dead in 1998 happened again.

The senior officer from the Garda's National Surveillance Unit (NSU) has told a commission of investigation into the fatal shooting of the 28-year-old he did not believe the scene of the shooting was chaotic.

The commission has already heard that armed gardaí in plain clothes from the NSU and Emergency Response Unit (ERU), some of whom did not know each other, ran into the scene through lines of traffic from both directions.

Crossfire

Evidence has also been heard that a shot was fired by one Garda member in the direction of another.

“It was relatively calm,” the unidentified Garda witness said. “There was a kind of deadness about it.”

He said that while members of the NSU present on the day should ideally have remained in the background and allowed their colleagues in the ERU to confront the raiders as the crime began, the incident unfolded very quickly.

“I can remember the vivid shouts on the radio,” he said of the initial warning from colleagues that the raiders had moved in on the Securicor van in Co Wicklow.

“Everyone went into automatic. There was no formal handover. If I had to do the same job today, I would do exactly the same thing.”

Later he said: “But there was regret, I can say it now there was regret that Rónán MacLochlainn lost his life. ”

MacLochlainn (28) from Ballymun, north Dublin, was shot dead during an armed robbery by a Real IRA gang on a Securicor van at Cullenmore Bends near Ashford, Co Wicklow, on May 1st, 1998.

The Garda witness, a detective sergeant at the time, gave his evidence to the commission in private session recently. His testimony was read into the record yesterday on condition of anonymity.

The witness said he was aware aerial photography and video of the scene was missing.

The commission of investigation was established by the Government in July last year after the dead man’s partner, Gráinne Nic Gib, took her case to the European Court of Human Rights, which ruled Mac- Lochlainn’s death was never properly investigated.