Tribunal hears evidence from garda

A Garda sergeant has given evidence of exchanging pleasantries with two RUC officers at Dundalk Garda station, just hours before the RUC men were killed in an ambush by the IRA.

Sgt Vincent Jackson told the Smithwick Tribunal he was going off duty shortly after 2pm on the afternoon of Monday March 20th, 1989, when the two officers passed him on the steps of the station, pausing briefly to exchange pleasantries.

Sgt Jackson said he did not recognize the men from previous visits but understood them to be RUC officers as “they were well dressed…They cut a certain dash when you saw them”.

Sgt Jackson who was then a uniformed garda said he later heard on the evening news that two RUC officers had been killed while returning from Dundalk Garda station.

“I realized I had met those two men, the two unfortunate men” he said.

Chief superintendent Harry Breen and RUC colleague Supt Bob Buchanan were killed in an IRA ambush on a ‘blind spot’ on the Edenappa Road, near Jonesboro’ Co Armagh, on northern side of the Border with Northern Ireland.

The Smithwick Tribunal is inquiring into suggestions that members of An Garda Síochána or other employees of the State colluded in the killings.

Sgt Jackson told the tribunal he remembered being shocked when he heard the news because he remembered meeting the two men.

He said the talk in the station house was that Gardaí would have expected the RUC men to take the main Dundalk to Newry road on their return journey and there was considerable surprise the officers had taken a back road through south Armagh.

“On a quiet, isolated road you take much more of a risk than going the main road”, he said.

Sgt Jackson said he had no evidence of collusion on the part of anyone in Dundalk Garda station.

“All I know is that the IRA said it was a successful operation”. He said it looked like the IRA had “mobilized a number of units and had the target in sight at all times. He said the IRA would have been meticulous in their planning and if there was any risk to themselves they would have called off the operation.

Civilian assistant in the Garda station Nora Burns told the tribunal she had no knowledge of the appointment made by the two RUC officers for the meeting.

She said she occupied an office on the ground floor, at the front of the building but had not seen the men arrive, possibly as her desk was not in front of the window. She said phone calls coming into the station would go initially to the radio room, although there may have been direct lines to some offices upstairs.

She said she had no knowledge of a phone call setting up the meeting and had not answered any calls to that effect.

Ms Burns said on the day of the killings she would have come on duty at about 9.15am and her lunch break was between 12.45 and 2pm. She said she sometimes went out of the station at lunchtime and had left the building that day between 1 and 2pm.

Asked by counsel for the Tribunal Fintan Valentine if the personnel in the station had been in shock when news came in of the killings “within 15 minutes of them leaving” Dundalk Garda station, she said she could not recall the officers being in shock, and did not remember much of the day at all.