Corrigan given leave to challenge Smithwick Tribunal findings

Retired Garda Owen Corrigan

The High Court yesterday granted permission to a retired Dundalk detective to challenge a finding by the Smithwick Tribunal that he gave information to the IRA about a man it later murdered.

Owen Corrigan totally rejects the “completely false and grossly damaging” findings that he told a senior IRA operative the late Tom Oliver, from Riverstown on the Cooley Peninsula, was a Garda informant shortly before Mr Oliver was abducted and murdered, his counsel, Jim O’Callaghan SC, said.

Mr Justice Michael Moriarty said yesterday, after “careful consideration”, he would grant leave to Mr Corrigan to bring his judicial review challenge aimed at quashing and removing certain findings relating to him in the tribunal report.

The tribunal was set up to inquire into the killing by the IRA in 1989 of senior RUC officers Chief Supt Harry Breen and Supt Robert Buchanan.

The tribunal made no finding Mr Corrigan was involved in collusion with the IRA in respect of the deaths of those officers.

In his action, Mr Corrigan claims he was denied fair procedures as he was not given advance notice that any finding in respect of Mr Oliver’s death could be made against him.

In making that finding, the tribunal acted outside its terms of reference, which was to investigate the allegation of collusion in the death of the two RUC officers, he claims.

Mr Justice Moriarty granted leave to challenge that finding but refused leave to challenge another finding that Mr Corrigan had not co-operated with the tribunal over providing details of his bank account.

In his final report, Judge Peter Smithwick said he accepted evidence from Kevin Fulton, who said he worked for the British military’s intelligence unit in Northern Ireland.

Mr Fulton had told the tribunal Mr Corrigan had provided information that Mr Oliver was an informant to Mooch Blair, a senior member of the IRA, in the car park of a Dundalk pub in 1991 as a result of which, Mr Fulton said, Mr Oliver was murdered by the IRA.

In his evidence to the tribunal, Mr Corrigan denied Mr Fulton’s claims.

Source: The Irish Times

Corrigan launches legal challenge to Smithwick Tribunal findings

Owen Corrigan

A retired Dundalk garda has begun a legal challenge against findings by the Smithwick Tribunal that he gave information to the IRA about a man it subsequently murdered.

The High Court heard yesterday that Owen Corrigan totally rejected findings made by former District Court President Peter Smithwick.

Judge Smithwick found that the retired detective told a senior IRA operative the late Tom Oliver, from Riverstown, was a garda informant shortly before Mr Oliver was abducted and murdered on July 19th 1991.

Mr Corrigan wants the court to quash and remove certain findings about him contained in the judge’s report concerning the killing of senior RUC officers Chief Superintendent Harry Breen and Superintendent Robert Buchanan by the IRA in March 1989.

The Smithwick Tribunal was set up to investigate claims that a member of An Garda Síochána colluded with the Provisional IRA in the murders.

Last December, the tribunal found that unnamed members of the gardaí had colluded with the IRA in respect of the RUC men’s deaths.

The tribunal made no finding that Mr Corrigan, who retired in 1992, was involved in this collusion.

The application to bring the challenge was made before Mr Justice Michael Moriarty.

The judge said he would consider the matter and give his ruling whether to grant leave today.

Retired gardaí hit out at Smithwick Tribunal for casting a cloud of suspicion over those who served in Dundalk

Retired gardaí have accused the Smithwick Tribunal of inflicting a lifelong injustice on many of their colleagues.

They claim the tribunal’s finding of collusion by unnamed gardaí with the Provisional IRA killers of two senior RUC officers has cast a cloud of suspicion over all those who served in Dundalk and surrounding stations at the time.

Last year Judge Peter Smithwick ruled that unnamed members of the force serving in this area had informed the IRA of the movements of RUC Chief Supt Harry Breen and Supt Bob Buchanan as they left a meeting in Dundalk Garda Station on March 20^th 1989. The two officers were stopped just over the border and murdered.

However, the Garda Siochana Retired Members’ Association, which represents 7,500 former gardaí of all ranks, has now called on the tribunal to allow their colleagues the opportunity to issue a response.

The association say they accept the tribunal’s finding but says it reserves the right to raise a number of issues that gravely concern its members and, in particular, those who served in Dundalk and elsewhere along the Louth border at the time.

The association points out that three former gardai, who were named in the tribunal, were allowed to defend their good names by giving evidence to Smithwick and being represented by lawyers, who could cross-examine their potential accusers. The three successfully grasped that opportunity and were cleared by the tribunal.

However, the rest of the station in Dundalk, the association argues in a statement on its website, have been left in a position where they cannot defend themselves as they do not know what the specific allegations are, the basis on which they were made or where they originated.

They have asked that every serving and retired garda member in Dundalk Station be given a chance to review evidence with their lawyers.

Otherwise, it says, the tribunal is in danger of inflicting a lifelong injustice on a group of brave men and women.

You can read the GSRMA’s full statement on the matter on their website here.

Smithwick Tribunal finds Garda collusion in killing of two RUC officers in 1989

The Smithwick Tribunal has concluded that there was Garda collusion in the killing of two RUC superintendents in south Armagh in March 1989.Chief Superintendent Harry Breen and Superintendent Bob Buchanan were shot dead by the IRA shortly after leaving a meeting at Dundalk Garda Station.

Minister for Justice Alan Shatter has apologised without reservation for any failings identified in the report on the part of the State or any of its agencies.

He said the murders were stark examples of the brutality “which pervaded this island for many dark years”.

Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore said he was appalled and saddened by the finding of collusion and described it as a matter of grave public concern.

Mr Gilmore, on behalf of the Government and people of Ireland, apologised without reservation to the Breen and Buchanan families.

In his 500-page report, Mr Justice Peter Smithwick states that he is satisfied that there was someone within Dundalk Garda Station assisting the IRA.

But the report concluded that the Tribunal has not uncovered direct evidence of collusion.

“There is no record of a phone call, no traceable payment, no smoking gun,” the report has found.

Judge Smithwick said it seems to him to be likely that the Provisional IRA would seek to exploit that resource by having one or more individuals confirm the arrival of the two RUC officers at the station.He said: “It is particularly regrettable that both police services acted swiftly to dismiss speculation of the possibility of collusion rather than to deal with that by means of a thorough and credible investigation.”

“This was an example of the prioritisation of political expediency in the short term, without due regard to the rights of victims and the importance of placing justice at the centre of any policing system.”

He said, however, that detailed consideration must be given to the events of 20 March 1989, when the RUC officers were killed.

He said following detailed consideration, he has reached the conclusion that from the afternoon or early evening of the previous Thursday 16 March 1989, it was intended that Chief Supt Breen and Supt Buchanan would travel to Dundalk at the beginning of the following week.

Those RUC officers who attended that meeting would have been aware of this plan, and a number of others became aware of it during the course of Friday 17 March and Saturday 18 March.

He went on to note that just after 10am on Monday 20 March Supt Buchanan told Supt Tierney in Dundalk Garda Station that he and his Divisional Commander wished to visit the station that day.

Judge Peter Smithwick concluded that Supt Buchanan spoke to Chief Supt Nolan and a meeting was arranged.

Chief Supt Nolan shared that information with Inspector Frank Murray at a tea break at around 11am and the possibility that other persons heard that conversation cannot be excluded.

Judge Smithwick found that Active Service Units of the IRA were active on the day in question and were on standby for an anticipated operation, before the arrival of the two officers at Dundalk Garda Station.

He said that it seemed “beyond doubt” that the IRA acquired information that the two officers had arrived at the station.

He also said the evidence pointed to the conclusion that Supt Breen was the target of the operation and that the Provisional IRA knew he was coming.

He said he was satisfied that the evidence pointed to the fact that there was someone within the garda station assisting the IRA.

In his findings, Judge Smithwick said the “integrity of and confidence in An Garda Síochána can properly be maintained only if suggestions of inappropriate or illegal conduct by members are taken seriously, transparently and thoroughly investigated and, above all, not tolerated or ignored on the basis of some misguided sense of loyalty to the force or to its members”.

He said the culture of failing to adequately address suggestions of wrongdoing, either for reasons of political expediency or by virtue of misguided loyalty, has been a feature of life in this State.

He concluded that “too often that culture has resulted, some years later, after doubts, grievances and injustices have festered, in the setting up of investigations, commissions or Tribunals of Inquiry”.

Judge Smithwick said the Tribunal sought to establish the truth and, in so doing, he said he hoped that it contributed one small part to changing that culture.

The Smithwick Tribunal was set up in 2005 to examine whether a member of An Garda Síochána or any other employee of the State had passed information to the IRA which allowed them time to set up the ambush in south Armagh in which the RUC officers were murdered.

Mr Justice Smithwick began private investigations in 2006 and held public hearings from 2011 until earlier this year.

Corrigan had inappropriate dealings with IRA

The tribunal found that former garda detective Owen Corrigan had an inappropriate relationship with subversives.

Judge Smithwick said Mr Corrigan became disaffected, possibly in the 1980s, with the detective branch in Dundalk where he was based.

“I also find that what may have started out as a professional relationship with subversives for the legitimate purpose of intelligence-gathering ultimately developed into a relationship of an inappropriate nature,” he said.

Mr Corrigan’s evidence to the tribunal was vague, evasive and inconsistent and was not credible, the report concluded.

“I do not think that he has been truthful to the tribunal in his evidence in relation to a number of matters,” Judge Smithwick said.

Furthermore, it was found that widespread concerns about Mr Corrigan’s “extra-curricular activities” – including smuggling and his relationship with subversives – were ignored by senior gardaí.

“I believe that there were sufficient warning signs, such that senior Garda officers should have taken steps to have Detective Sergeant Corrigan transferred away from the border area earlier than this, in fact, occurred,” Judge Smithwick said.

RUC concerns about him were relayed to assistant commissioner Eugene Crowley – who went on to become garda commissioner – in 1987 “but there is no evidence of any action having been taken on foot of this information,” the tribunal found.

Judge Smithwick found that while there is some evidence that Mr Corrigan passed information to the Provisional IRA, he is “not satisfied that that evidence is of sufficient substance and weight to establish that Mr Corrigan did in fact collude in the murders.

No evidence Colton colluded with IRA in murders

Judge Smithwick said that in relation to retired sergeant Leo Colton he found that on a strong balance of probabilities he was someone who in the course of 1995 and 1996 assisted the Provisional IRA by having his former colleague sergeant Finbarr Hickey sign false passport application forms.

However, he said that while this was a relatively significant form of assistance and IRA members had “considerable trust” in Mr Colton and he would have been in the position to provide information about the IRA operation, the evidence does not establish that he colluded with the Provisional IRA in the murders.

Hickey not in a position to pass information on the day

In relation to former sergeant Hickey, Judge Smithwick concluded that he was not on duty on the day of the ambush, and was “in all probability” not in the station before the murders occurred.

The judge said he was satisfied that Mr Hickey was not in a position to pass information to the IRA which facilitated the ambush.

Families shocked by findings

Supt Bob Buchanan’s son William said: “The findings are both incredible and shocking and confirm the existence of a mole in Dundalk station. This led to my father’s death.”

The family of Harry Breen have said all their fears have been realised by the tribunal’s devastating findings.

Lawyers for the family said the officer and his trusted colleague Superintendent Bob Buchanan were betrayed by their counterparts in the Republic’s police force.

Source: RTÉ News

Related articles

• Smithwick report set to be published later today (talkofthetown.ie)
• Smithwick Report due today (talkofthetown.ie)

Smithwick Tribunal to end today

Ch Supt Harry Breen and Supt Bob Buchanan were murdered by the IRA in March 1989

A public inquiry into the murders of the two most senior Royal Ulster Constabulary officers killed during the Troubles is expected to end today.

The Smithwick Tribunal was set up to investigate claims that local Gardaí colluded in the deaths of RUC Chief Supt Harry Breen and Supt Bob Buchanan.

They were shot dead an an IRA ambush while returning from a meeting in Dundalk Garda Station.

The Dublin-based tribunal is due to hear closing statements today.

Over 200 witnesses have testified since the tribunal was established in 2005, including former IRA members and spies in the British security services.

Many allegations were made, some centring on former garda sergeant Owen Corrigan.

He denied collaborating with the IRA, despite one RUC intelligence document that said he passed on information.

Suspicions have also fallen on two other Dundalk gardai; Leo Colton and Finbarr Hickey.

They too deny leaking information to the IRA.

In a statement to the inquiry, the IRA said the killings were the result of a lengthy surveillance operation and that they had no help from any garda officer.

While one British intelligence document suggested there were several Dundalk gardai up to and over the rank of sergeant leaking to the IRA, another British intelligence document said none of the three mentioned in the tribunal helped the IRA.

The inquiry also heard evidence of the PSNI not passing on recent intelligence on the murders to gardai.

So, the chairman, retired judge Peter Smithwick, will have a difficult task in reaching a definite conclusion with a verdict expected in October.