Gogarty tells of a bullet fired through his window

The reason Mr James Gogarty blew the whistle on the former minister for foreign affairs, Mr Ray Burke, can be traced back to a series of late-night phone threats and a bullet fired mysteriously through his front window, according to his evidence yesterday.

The 81-year-old former building executive outlined his dissatisfaction with Garda investigations into his complaints of intimidation. However, he drew back considerably from previous claims that gardai had been bribed to drop the case.

"I felt that if there was credible evidence that it was being investigated, then we wouldn't be sitting here today," he said.

It was a rough day in the witness box for the former executive of Joseph Murphy Structural Engineering.

He was reduced to tears as he recounted how he became a "recluse" living "in fear and dread" following the alleged intimidation in 1994.

But given that the tribunal was told he suffers from irregular heartbeat, diabetes, blackouts, severe arthritis, kidney stones, an over-active thyroid gland and stress, perhaps it is a wonder that he ever made it to give evidence in Dublin Castle.

"Every morning and night I thank God for the bones of another day, and I'm not going to put that at risk by coming here and telling lies," he sobbed, before asking for a break.

Mr Justice Flood assented, saying he needed one, too.

The previous day Mr Gogarty had told of receiving late-night phone-calls in June 1994, when Mr Joseph Murphy jnr allegedly threatened to "break every f...ing bone in your body."

Yesterday's evidence dealt with Mr Gogarty's attempts to seek redress. This odyssey took him successively to the Garda (twice), two solicitors, the High Court, two politicians, the media and, ultimately, the planning tribunal.

Notes written by his solicitor detailed other instances of alleged intimidation.

These included a shot fired through the front window of his house in 1992, a series of nuisance phone-calls, also in 1992, and damage to Mr Gogarty's car and his wife's in January 1994. Mr Gogarty reported these matters to the Garda in Howth.

But, according to the same note, the investigating garda felt Mr Murphy was "under the influence" and engaging in "drink talk".

It would not be worthwhile bringing a case against Mr Murphy because of the difficulty of proving the allegation and in serving a summons (Mr Murphy lived in London). He had promised not to ring Mr Gogarty again.

Mr Gogarty disagrees with his solicitor's version of events. He said yesterday the Garda decision was "an error of judgment"; while he accepted it, he didn't agree with it.

His aim, one which grew in intensity over the years, was to see Mr Murphy charged and punished.

He started civil proceedings, but the man employed to serve a summons on Mr Murphy withdrew, Mr Gogarty said.

A London firm of solicitors was contracted to serve a summons on Mr Murphy there, but failed in five attempts.

In May 1995 he contacted the Labour TD for Dublin North East, Mr Tommy Broughan. Mr Gogarty said Mr Broughan did his best, "but the political process thwarted him."

Mr Broughan tried to ask the Minister for Justice, Mrs Nora Owen, in the Dail why no prosecution had been brought. But "politically contentious" questions such as this were placed down the list and "kicked to touch," the witness alleged.

And so he went to Mr Michael McDowell, then a Progressive Democrats TD. Mr McDowell recommended he find a criminal lawyer.

So in 1995, when a firm of solicitors in Newry, Donnelly Neary & Donnelly, advertised a £10,000 reward for information on planning corruption, Mr Gogarty contacted them.

He wasn't interested in the reward, he stressed. Indeed, he wasn't even interested in planning. "I didn't give a damn about it, to tell the truth."

As usual with Mr Gogarty's evidence, events took a surreal turn at times. At one point, for example, he reminded the tribunal that he was an ex-garda himself.

He recounted coming within feet of being shot dead while chasing an escaped IRA convict in Donnycarney in the 1940s.

His colleague, George Mordaunt, was killed.

Mr Gogarty said he never "wittingly or deliberately" disparaged gardai.

Mr Garrett Cooney SC, for JMSE, pointed out that Mr Gogarty in his affidavit alleged that "improper influence" had been brought to bear on the gardai conducting the investigation.

And he pointed out that Mr Gogarty had earlier accused the investigating garda of corruption and bribery.

These charges had been shown to be baseless, said Mr Cooney, who sought unsuccessfully for the Garda statements on their investigations to be put before the tribunal.

Mr Cooney denied a claim, contained in notes written by Mr Gogarty's solicitor in 1994, that Mr Murphy had a conviction for assaulting a girl during a rugby dance in the Berkeley Court hotel in the 1980s and had been fined £100.

Mr Nuala Butler, for the Garda Siochana (and the first woman barrister to address the tribunal in 12 days of evidence), described Mr Gogarty's evidence concerning the Garda as "rambling, irrelevant and prejudicial".

Mr Gogarty's evidence continues today.