The suspended Garda superintendent at the centre of allegations that bogus arms finds were planted in Donegal a decade ago has described as "reprehensible" the allegations made against him.
"These are reprehensible allegations that the public out there should know don't exist and never existed," Supt Kevin Lennon told the Morris tribunal.
Ms Adrienne McGlinchey alleges Supt Lennon and Det Noel McMahon prepared explosives that later turned up in bogus garda arms finds. Both have denied the claims, and Ms McGlinchey has persistently maintained that she was never a member of the IRA, or was an informer.
A "red alert" went out to all gardaí whenever alleged informer Ms Adrienne McGlinchey went near the border, the tribunal heard. "I have been the subject of many false allegations, in terms of a bomb in a courthouse at Strabane, on which I had no knowledge, that I put a van with explosives somewhere into Strabane or Lifford, which is untrue, that I obtained financial rewards from various individuals, 1,000 from Mr A, 2,000 from Mr B and 5,000 from Mr C, that I was involved in robbing a van from a car-park in Moville, that I was involved in the planting of drugs in the Point Inn, which has now been withdrawn and is totally untrue, and that I facilitated the purchase of illicit substances from Ms McGlinchey for the purposes of planting in the Point Inn, and various other allegations that I had extra-marital affairs.
"I never procured the materials for the preparation, or took part in the manufacturing of, or the planting of subversive materials," Supt Lennon said.
"I had a long and distinguished career. I had an unblemished career." He said that what he knew of Ms McGlinchey's activities, he learned from Det McMahon, who was handling her as an informer. "He reported them on to me and I took them as bona fide.
"I did not seek finds, nor did I seek anybody to plant finds. I took them as bona-fide and legitimate at that time as they were found. I'm a victim of publicity in relation to matters that never occurred and are falsehoods," he said.
Supt Lennon said that in 1997 he was transferred to Letterkenny as district officer and over the "McBrearty affair" and some months later sent a file to the DPP. "From there it was downhill in my career," he said.
In 1999, after he returned from an FBI course in the US, and met Chief Supt Denis Fitzpatrick, who asked him to withdraw McMahon's firearm. He was later summoned to the chief superintendent's office, and told to hand over the McBrearty file to the Carty inquiry, who wanted to review McBrearty/extortion phone calls. Later that year, he was transferred to Milford because allegations were being made against him. "From that point my life changed forever."
Supt Lennon told the tribunal that he had reprimanded Det Noel McMahon when he pointed a gun at a fellow officer, Garda Séamus Gordon, in Buncrana Garda station in 1992.
"I warned him he should never do that. He knew the rules," he said. "The next time he did it I'd take his gun off him."
Supt Lennon said the incident occurred as part of a slagging and argument "about detective branch being more elitist than uniform," and was not an argument about who should get credit for discovering an apparent mortar rocket prototype. However, at the Court of Criminal Appeal hearing on the miscarriage of justice application by Donegal nightclub owner Mr Frank Shortt, Supt Lennon had told Mr Justice Hardiman he was not involved in the incident.
Tribunal chairman Mr Justice Frederick Morris asked for an explanation "of how it appears you told a lie in the Court of Criminal Appeal?"
"Sir, in the Court Of Criminal Appeal I was being drawn over all this stuff and I had no references or anything with me or no research done," Supt Lennon said. "I was just hit with those questions."
"It's as easy to spontaneously tell the truth as spontaneously tell a lie," tribunal barrister Mr Peter Charleton SC said. Supt Lennon said Donegal was "a territory that was very difficult to police".
Yesterday, Det McMahon, also now suspended, was unable to continue when he was taken ill. He is currently in hospital and will appear again later.