SMITHWICK TRIBUNAL: opening statement:FORMER SENIOR members of the Provisional IRA were involved in a face-to-face meeting with the Smithwick Tribunal in recent weeks as part of its investigation into Garda or State collusion in the ambush of two senior RUC officers in south Armagh 21 years ago.
The meeting, the first time the IRA has co-operated with an inquiry in the State, was disclosed by Maura Laverty SC, a member of the tribunal legal team, when reading its opening statement yesterday.
The inquiry’s first substantive hearing of evidence from witnesses will start tomorrow.
The tribunal, chaired by former president of the District Court Peter Smithwick, was set up six years ago to investigate allegations that gardaí or other representatives of the State colluded in the IRA ambush of senior RUC officers Chief Supt Harry Breen and Supt Bob Buchanan in March 1989.
The incident happened near the border village of Jonesborough as both men returned from a meeting earlier that day with senior gardaí in Dundalk.
Ms Laverty described the meeting with the former IRA members as a “very significant development” in its private investigation, which has been ongoing for six years.
She said an intermediary had arranged the meeting.
“Those former members included former leadership at both national and local [south Armagh] level.
“One of the three former personnel had first-hand knowledge of the [Provisional] IRA operation of March 20th, 1989, and had a command role in that operation. The former personnel gave a detailed account of the events leading to the deaths of Chief Supt Breen and Supt Buchanan and replied to questions posed [by the legal team],” she said.
The meeting was one of several significant recent developments referred to by Ms Laverty in the 72-page opening statement on the first day of public hearings.
She said intelligence material had been uncovered by the tribunal that was not before Judge Peter Cory, the Canadian judge who conducted the first investigation into wider allegations of police and State collusion on both sides of the Border.
The tribunal also disclosed that former British agent Kevin Fulton would give evidence as would Ian Hurst, also known as Martin Ingram, who handled IRA informers on behalf of the British army’s secretive force research unit.
The opening statement named the three gardaí identified in a Garda investigation carried out in 2000 into the allegations of collusion.
Two of these gardaí, retired Det Sgt Owen Corrigan and retired Sgt Leo Colton, were the focus of allegations made by journalist Toby Harnden in his book Bandit Country and by columnist Kevin Myers.
The third, Finbarr Hickey, a former sergeant, was convicted for counter-signing eight passport application forms which ended up in the hands of three active members of the IRA.
All three have strenuously denied they colluded with the IRA in the ambush of the two RUC officers.
Ms Laverty also outlined why the private phase of the tribunal, which was established in 2005, had lasted so long.
Because much of the information had to be obtained from Northern Ireland, it meant that the progress of the investigation was partly outside the control of the tribunal, she said.
The tribunal’s terms of references were changed last week by the Dáil to require it to complete its report by November 30th.
In all, the tribunal has interviewed 214 potential witness, including members of the Garda, RUC, PSNI, politicians and others, Ms Lavery said.
She referred to widespread media reports on the days following the ambush alleging there was a “mole” in the gardaí who had tipped off the IRA about the route that both RUC officers would take on their return to the North from Dundalk Garda station.