Six journalists interviewed by Garda over rumours of leaking of report

Six journalists were interviewed by gardai following suggestions that parts of the Garda report on the Abbeylara shooting were leaked to the media.

Supt Oliver Hanley, who oversaw the interviewing of journalists, said it was possible that some information could have come from members of the Garda. He agreed that some of the articles were very accurate.

Gardai interviewed former Sunday Independent journalist Liz Allen, RTE's David Hanly and Paul Reynolds, Maeve Sheehan from the Sunday Times, John Mooney of Ireland on Sunday and Joe Flaherty of the Longford Leader.

"All of them would say that, as reporters, they would protect their source of information, and their right - as I acknowledge it here - has been upheld in the courts of this country," he said.

Supt Hanley said a lot of officers were traumatised by the events at Abbeylara and may have discussed what had happened with their friends and neighbours.

In their attempts to correct mistaken impressions, they may have unintentionally given some information to the press.

"Having said all that, I cannot and do not say that the possibility of someone within our organisation saying things to the press that they should not have said; I cannot exclude that."

If gardai gave biased accounts of events to the media this was wrong.

"I would say here now - and the Commissioner would support me in this - that anyone who did that did no service to An Garda Siochana."

Earlier yesterday, Garda Commissioner Mr Pat Byrne said gardai were not specifically trained to incapacitate, rather than kill, in certain situations.

"This is subject to clarification, Mr Chairman, but I do believe that the training does not involve particular training to shoot somebody, we'll say, to wound."

He said the force did not have a policy on when it was appropriate to wound, rather than kill, in particular situations.

"If you are suggesting that we should have a policy that, in one particular set of circumstances, we should shoot to injure a person in the hand, in the ankle or wherever, and a different set of circumstances that we should have a policy to say, well, this time we'll consciously decide to kill this person, my answer to you is that we don't have such a policy."

He said the decision on the level of force to be used rested with individual members of the force. The use of the firearm was based on the training of that individual and the code of instructions in relation to it. Garda training stressed the individual responsibility which came with the power to make such a decision.