Morris Tribunal: A Donegal detective accepted the truth of allegations made by his estranged wife only when faced with D-Day in the witness stand, and question marks over her truthfulness could have been removed had he done this earlier, the Morris tribunal heard.
Det Garda Noel McMahon and colleague Supt Kevin Lennon have both denied that, together with alleged informer Ms Adrienne McGlinchey, they prepared explosives for use in bogus Garda arms finds. Ms McGlinchey insists she was never an informer or in the IRA.
"Once D-Day came, when the final moment came, Det Garda McMahon accepted my client's truthfulness on many issues, and the areas of dispute which were left between them were greatly reduced," said Mr Cormac Corrigan SC, representing Mrs Sheenagh McMahon, the estranged wife of Det McMahon.
Mr Corrigan said the evidence of his client was for the most part no longer disputed.
"Both Det Garda McMahon and Supt Lennon have questioned Sheenagh McMahon's credibility on matters which they have subsequently either admitted to completely or admitted to in part, putting a different context on it than did Sheenagh McMahon in her evidence and previous statements," he said.
Ms Fiona Crawford BL, representing Mr Pearse Devine, said her client was not involved in events and his name had been brought in as an act of revenge after he refused to make statements supporting Ms McGlinchey.
Mr Justice Frederick Morris asked why her client was not "brought into it in a much deeper way" if this was what Ms McGlinchey was doing. "She portrays him as an innocent abroad," he said, "who helped her carry trays, who gave her a hand to carry weights, that sort of thing, but she in no way makes the case that he was grinding fertiliser or anything of that sort."
The judge asked if the reason Ms McGlinchey had not named Mr Devine before this year married with her evidence that she "wanted to keep him out of it". Ms Crawford said her client totally denied all involvement.
Mr Devine's sister, Yvonne, was a victim of events who was "kept in the dark" about the activities of her friend, Ms McGlinchey, her barrister Mr Brian Walsh BL, said. He said Ms Devine has given the best evidence she can of events happening around her and about which largely - and in the circumstances understandably - she was "kept in the dark", he said.
Mr Walsh asked the chairman "to accept that Ms Devine was indeed a victim of the events that engulfed her between 1991 and 1994". "It is only now as she hears the evidence coming from the tribunal, she realises that far more was going on than she could ever have imagined."