Solicitor calls for government to re-examine claims of IRA and Garda collusion during the Troubles

John McBurney

The solicitor for the family of a policeman murdered by the IRA has called on the Irish government to re-examine claims of IRA and Garda collusion in a series of border area killings.

John McBurney said an independent panel should look into a number of incidents that led to a dozen deaths.

Mr McBurney represented the Breen family at the Smithwick Tribunal.

Chief Supt Harry Breen and Supt Bob Buchanan were shot dead in March 1989.

They were killed in an IRA ambush in south Armagh, as they crossed the border into Northern Ireland after a meeting in Dundalk Garda Station.

The Smithwick Inquiry was set up by the Irish government in 2005 to investigate claims that officers based in Dundalk station had assisted the IRA gang who ambushed the two officers on 20 March 1989.

It found there was Irish police collusion in the murders.

Mr McBurney made his comments during a BBC NI Spotlight investigation on Tuesday.

He said that some of the findings made by Judge Smithwick led him to believe that a number of cases should be re-examined.

He said: “It makes you think that when Judge Smithwick finds that in March 1989, a guard or guards provided the information to the same terrorist grouping that in 1988 was providing information which led to the murder by mistake of the Hanna family.

“Who was providing information which led to the murder of Lord Justice and Lady Gibson; who perhaps was assisting in the disposal in forensics in the murder of Terence McKeever; who assisted with knowledge about the movement of the Brinks Mat van on that fateful day in 1985.

“All of those events could quite easily have been contaminated by information from a guard or guards.

“That leaves you asking the question, do we not need to probe each and every one of those incidents in an organised and structured way, in order to identify precisely who the colluder or colluders were.

“People have lost so much over these years. That’s what they are longing for, those details and that acknowledgement.”

Source: BBC NI

Lawyer calls for reopening of Smithwick Tribunal following Garda surveillance scandal

Chief Supt Harry Breen and Supt Bob Buchanan were murdered by the IRA in March 1989 after leaving a meeting in Dundalk Garda Station

The Smithwick Tribunal should be reopened on the back of the Garda surveillance scandal.

That’s according to the lawyer for the family of former RUC Chief Superintendent Harry Breen, who was gunned down along with his colleague Superintendent Bob Buchanan on their way home from a security meeting in Dundalk in March 1989.

John McBurney said yesterday that the recent revelations that phone calls at stations have been recorded since the 1980s could have major ramifications on the Smithwick Tribunal’s outcome, despite the fact that Judge Peter Smithwick published his findings last December.

Judge Smithwick found gardaí colluded in the RUC men’s double murder but failed to pinpoint definitive evidence to blame an individual officer for informing the IRA of their movements.

His long-running inquiry was repeatedly told by senior gardaí that they did not have suspicions of an IRA mole among their ranks in Dundalk Garda station.

Mr McBurney said it would be incredible if there were no tapes of calls in and out of Dundalk when lines at the divisional headquarters of Drogheda and Monaghan were understood to be under surveillance.

He said: “Judge Smithwick must be troubled. He has the power to reopen an inquiry if he feels that he had information deliberately withheld and that could have been an attempt to pervert the course of justice.

“He would want to look at that further.”

Six ther high-profile cases may also have been discussed on recorded calls in the border region, according to Mr McBurney, including information on Cooley farmer Tom Oliver, who was murdered by Provos in 1991 for allegedly being an informer.

Mr McBurney said he was not claiming a tape exists from Drogheda or Monaghan that proves calls were made to the Provos with information that led to those killings but that they may contradict evidence from gardaí who told the tribunal there were no concerns about an IRA mole.

He said: “It beggars belief that the judge was trying at a basic level to get details of phone calls in Dundalk and could not, yet there could be wholesale recording of conversations at that station and other stations.

“The very first thought that came into my head was the days and days of evidence that we listened to from engineers and garda specialist officers convincing us that the Provos had not bugged Dundalk, that everything had been checked thoroughly, and all along the Garda had bugged themselves.”

Ernie Waterworth, solicitor for the Buchanan family, said the revelations that recordings might exist of phone calls in and out of Dundalk around the time of the double murder is frightening.

“Even the fact that Drogheda and Monaghan could have had the phone lines recorded, to me that causes concern,” he said.

“The people in Dundalk would have been talking to Drogheda when making arrangements for the movements of VIPs, protective operations. The visits of (late RUC Chief Constable) Sir John Hermon, Judge Gibson… All of that is frightening what you could take from it.

“I feel that all of that, the likes of the communications from Garda HQ in Dublin to border stations and so on, Dundalk would have to have been notified.

“The revelations are concerning.”

Mr McBurney said he is minded to contact the head of a commission of inquiry set up to investigate the bugging scandal with his concerns once they are appointed.

Solicitor defends Smithwick Tribunal

Chief Supt Harry Breen and Supt Bob Buchanan, who were murdered in an ambush just over the border after leaving Dundalk Garda Station in 1989

A solicitor for the family of an RUC officer whose murder was found by the Smithwick Tribunal to be linked to Garda collusion with the IRA has launched a strong defence of the inquiry’s findings.

His statement comes after three former Dundalk Gardaí – retired det chief supt John O’Brien, former chief supt Michael Finnegan and former chief supt Michael Staunton, claimed the tribunal’s finding is not grounded in facts and should be rejected by the Government “as a matter of urgency and justice”.

However, John McBurney, solicitor for the family of murdered RUC officer Harry Breen, says the gardaí’s critique is highly selective, filled with errors and displays a lack of familiarity with the inquiry’s findings.

The solicitor’s response, published in today’s Irish Times, also claims the critique by former gardaí displays a lack of independence and a keenness to accept the IRA’s versions of events.

In addition, Mr McBurney staunchly defends the Smithwick Tribunal’s report as a “comprehensive, nuanced and fair document”.

You can read Mr McBurney’s statement on IrishTimes.com