Witness claims noisy tools used partly to annoy sleeping garda

A Donegal man used noisy metal-cutting equipment in a flat in the middle of the night, partly to annoy a garda who was sleeping in the apartment below, the Morris tribunal has heard.

Ms Ciara McLoughlin, formerly of the Crescent, Buncrana, told the tribunal that her estranged husband, Mr Bernard Logue, used an angle grinder and welding equipment in the incident, which took place in the home of their neighbour, Ms Adrienne McGlinchey, between 2 a.m. and 3 a.m. on a night in 1993.

She said the windows were blacked out with plastic bags during the operation which, apart from annoying the garda, was also aimed at modifying metal Christmas-tree holders for Ms McGlinchey. The bags on the windows were designed to obstruct the view of gardaí sitting in a car outside, and also just to annoy them, Ms McLoughlin added.

Shown by counsel for the tribunal a number of exhibits, previously described in evidence as "mortar-type" devices, Ms McLoughlin said the Christmas-tree holders modified by her husband were smaller and had different welding.

Ms McLoughlin, a 28-year-old mother of six, had been admonished by the tribunal chairman on Monday after giving evidence that she used her father-in-law's gun licence to procure shotgun cartridges and bullets for Ms McGlinchey, for "clay-pigeon shooting".

Mr Justice Morris invited her to "have a think about what you're saying to me, and tomorrow try to make a bit of sense". Yesterday morning, he expressed the hope that she had "pulled \ together," and when the witness nodded, he said: "Good girl." However, Ms McLoughlin repeated the evidence about the bullets, saying Ms McGlinchey needed them for local festivals.

Ms McLoughlin also testified that she had seen two members of the gardaí - Supt Kevin Lennon and Det Garda Noel McMahon - carrying heavy plastic bags into Ms McGlinchy's flat. In her own evidence to the tribunal, Ms McGlinchy has claimed that she [Ms McGlinchy] was a Garda informant who concocted explosive material for Supt Lennon and Det Garda McMahon.

Ms McLoughlin said discrepancies between her evidence now and a statement made to the Carty inquiry arose because she was "as high as a kite" on drugs at the time of the statement.

She had since spent four weeks in rehab, she added. She agreed with counsel Mr Paul McDermott that the main addition to her evidence was the detail about gardaí carrying bags into Ms McGlinchey's flat.

The witness said she started passing information to the gardaí about Ms McGlinchey after an incident in 1993. It happened late one night when Ms McGlinchey's flatmate, Ms Yvonne Devine, ran into Ms McLoughlin's flat and said the guards were after her. Ms Devine hid under a "quilt" beside the bed in which Mr Logue was lying, and was not found during a raid by detectives.

The following day, she received a visit and an apology for the raid from Det Garda Noel Jones, who gave Mr Logue money and asked them to let him know about anything suspicious in Ms McGlinchey's flat. Among the events subsequently reported were loud noises one night and the sight of a man jumping out Ms McGlinchey's kitchen window. They had also passed on information when Ms McGlinchey asked Mr Logue to fix a coffee grinder, which had traces of fertilizer.

Even while passing on information, however, she envied Ms McGlinchey and Ms Devine: "They were getting all this attention from the guards and I wanted attention too." The Garda activity seemed like "fun".

She stopped seeing Ms McGlinchy when the latter was arrested in 1994. But they met up again when Ms McLaughlin moved into a hostel in Letterkenny in 2000 with her children, and was "down and out rough".

Ms McGlinchy had since been "very supportive," helping her get a house and giving her a job in her sweetshop.