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 20th 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.
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