A senior Canadian policeman who worked for the Morris tribunal as an investigator has been highly critical of Garda procedures in Donegal in the early 1990s.
Chief Supt Brian Garvie, a 30-year veteran of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, has questioned seven suspect explosive finds the early 1990s.
In one case, ground fertiliser was "left lying" in a Garda station for years. "It is not an acceptable way, even on a base level, of treating exhibits," Chief Supt Garvie said. The tribunal is looking into claims that Ms Adrienne McGlinchey, together with Supt Kevin Lennon and Garda Noel McMahon, prepared explosives for use in bogus Garda arms finds. The two have denied those claims, and Ms McGlinchey has insisted she was never an informer. Chief Supt Garvie told the tribunal he had compared the handling of Ms McGlinchey with other examples on Garda files concerning informers.
In some finds where Ms McGlinchey had an involvement, scenes of finds were not preserved for examination, he said, and no photographs of the finds were taken. In other cases no forensic examination of the scene was made, and samples were not sent for analysis to the Garda Technical Bureau, he added.
"In the case of the larger finds, a great deal more effort should have been put into the investigations." He contrasted this to a tip-off received from an informer identified as "D" in March 1997. Supt Lennon, who received the tip-off, arranged for the area to be kept under surveillance until a search could be organised. However, both the search and surveillance were negative. "No evidence was found to associate any of the individuals with the IRA," he said. He added that informants should be continually evaluated. "In the Barron module, when it comes to 'D', in 40 cases where information was received not one provided tangible evidence of an offence."
After any event or meeting with an informant, a debriefing report should be sent, containing information obtained, and an evaluation of whether it was considered reliable, unreliable, or possibly reliable, he said
The Carty inquiry into allegations of Garda wrongdoing in Donegal was "to an acceptable standard", he said. However, some of the investigators may have "been seen to be too close to the investigation. The perception may well have been that they were not as independent as they could have been or should have been," Chief Supt Garvie said.