Morris Tribunal: The Garda superintendent alleged to have prepared bogus explosives finds in Donegal a decade ago has said he should be allowed the same defence as that put forward by the Garda Commissioner on behalf of the superintendent who investigated the largest of the finds.
Supt Kevin Lennon, representing himself before the tribunal, said the Commissioner's legal team had argued that "once information is shown to be substantially correct, its perceived reliability and genuineness would not be undermined by the fact that not all details could be verified, or even if some details proved to be incorrect. I concur with that submission. I had no reason to believe or suspect that the discovery as pointed out to me was in any way suspicious. It never entered my mind in relation to any of these finds that they were other than genuine."
Supt Lennon said that Supt Michael Duffy has accepted that he held the responsibility for further investigation after the huge find in Rossnowlagh in July 1994, yet the scene had not been properly preserved or subjected to thorough forensic examination.
Supt Lennon also referred to damage to his reputation in connection with an incident where alleged informer Ms Adrienne McGlinchey brought shotgun cartridges and rifle bullets across the Border.
"Chief Supt Denis Fitzpatrick has deliberately and consciously gilded the story in an effort to cause me as much damage as possible. It is submitted that at no time was he told by me that this delivery was made by Ms McGlinchey to generate a hoax bomb alert for the IRA," Supt Lennon said.
In the current module, the tribunal investigated allegations that Det Garda Noel McMahon and Supt Lennon prepared explosives together with Ms McGlinchey that were later used in bogus Garda arms finds in Co Donegal during the 1990s. Both deny the accusations, and Ms McGlinchey has insisted she was never an informer or IRA member.
The superintendent said he was wrong when he did not formally discipline a detective for pointing his service revolver at a fellow officer, but said that did not mean he planned fake arms finds to promote his career.
"If I am to be criticised for that incident, I accept that criticism. That does not mean that I with Det Noel McMahon made up bombs or planted them around the county in order to advance my career in An Garda Síochána."
Supt Lennon said that it was established by the Supreme Court that an individual had a right to vindicate his good name. "It is unclear if the Supreme Court envisaged a situation where the individual, a non-lawyer and on his own, would have ganged against him the leading lawyers in the State resourced with all the necessary back up," he said.