Evidence 'wrong', Smithwick told

British Army undercover agent Kevin Fulton was wrong when he claimed Garda fingerprint evidence had been “sorted out ” to prevent known IRA activists being implicated in a bomb factory, the Smithwick Tribunal has been told.

Giving evidence at the tribunal this morning, Det Sgt Aidan Daly said the the fingerprint marks of known IRA bomb maker Partick Mooch Blair and undercover British agent in the IRA Kevin Fulton were contained in a file maintained by gardaí and labelled “politicals”.

Mr Daly said the file was seen by a fingerprint expert who had taken “identifiable print marks” from a lorry parked inside the garage of a house in Omeath, Co Louth, where bomb-making materials had been found. But he said the fingerprint expert had not drawn any matches between the marks taken from the lorry and those on record as belonging to Fulton and Blair.

Mr Daly said the file containing the marks taken from the bomb-making site had subsequently been lost, “most likely” after a flood in the basement of Garda headquarters where they had been stored.

Cross-examining Michael Durack, SC for An Garda, said the key fact was that the fingerprints of Fulton and Blair had been in a file marked "politicals" that had been given to the investigating fingerprint officer at the time.

Jim O’Callaghan, SC for former Det Sgt Owen Corrigan of Dundalk Garda station, said he wanted to make it plain why Mr Daly was present at the tribunal to give evidence. He said  Fulton, also known as Peter Keeley, had given evidence to the tribunal that suggested Mr Corrigan had “sorted things out” to ensure the fingerprint evidence would not implicate either Fulton or Blair.

But Mr O’Callaghan said the allegation must have been wrong. He said it was Mr Daly’s evidence that the fingerprints of both men were in the file of "political" suspects seen by the investigating fingerprint expert.

Mr Daly agreed that they "should have been”.

However, counsel for the PSNI Mark Robinson questioned how 1,000 suspects in the political file, with 10 fingerprints each, could have been checked against the identifiable marks taken from the bomb site in the two days the examination lasted.

He asked if it was possible that gardaí would guide the fingerprint expert, telling which political suspects could be ruled out. Mr Daly said this could happen only in some certain circumstances.

Meanwhile, former Fianna Fáil minister for justice Gerry Collins has written to the tribunal to refute suggestions that gardaí were told not to cooperate with an RUC investigation into the Narrow Water bombing, in which 18 British soldiers and one civilian were killed.

Yesterday, the tribunal was told by a former deputy assistant chief constable of the RUC, referred to only as Witness 68, that former taoiseach Jack Lynch decreed the Garda give no assistance to the Northern authorities investigating the bombing.

In a letter published today outside the tribunal, Mr Collins disputed the account.

"Jack Lynch was vehemently opposed to the IRA's campaign of violence, and he sought to ensure that there was co-operation between the Garda Síochána and the RUC in order to combat that threat to both parts of the island," wrote Mr Collins, who  offered to go the tribunal to give evidence himself.

"Jack Lynch and his immediate family have passed away and there is no-one there to defend his name and good honour. The evidence given by Witness 68 has received significant prominence in the media. It shall remain there indefinitely, irrespective of the conclusions in the Chairman's final report.

“I think the memory and honour of Jack Lynch deserve that someone who knew him and worked with him intimately during these troubled times should be asked to give evidence before the tribunal. I believe I am the most appropriate person.”