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2 4 July
NEWS
T
he Smithwick Tribunal was set up in
2005 and sat in public from 2011 until
2013, to examine the possibility of
collusion in the deaths of Chief Super-
intendent Harry Breen and
Superintendent Bob Buchanan, of the Royal
Ulster Constabulary (RUC) who were murdered
North of the Border in March 1989, after a brief
meeting in Dundalk Garda Station. The purpose
of their visit was to discuss a move against the
IRA's Tom 'Slab' Murphy, which had been
ordered by then Northern Ireland Secretary of
State, Tom King.
In 1999 John Weir, a former RUC Sergeant who
had been convicted of murder as part of a loyal-
ist gang, drew up an affidavit for a defamation
case which was published by the Barron Inquiry
investigating the Dublin and Monaghan bomb-
ings, which asserted he personally knew that
senior RUC Officers had colluded with the UVF.
He alleged that Harry Breen supplied arms to
the UVF in Portadown.
Smithwick implicitly accepted only that Breen
was targeted by the Provisional Irish Republi-
can Army (IRA) because he was photographed
in 1987 with weapons taken from Loughgall
where eight IRA men were killed after British
secret services got advanced warning of an
ambush there.
The Tribunal spent years investigating
alleged collusion of a different kind, between
very different agents: by three gardaí in Dund-
alk Garda Station with the IRA. Confusingly, the
PSNI arrived at the eleventh hour, with news of
a ‘Fourth Man’, so defusing the allegations
against the first three.
Though it found "no smoking gun" in Dund-
alk, the Tribunal weakly decided there was
indeed less specific evidence of "collusion by
gardaí" in the murders. Dutifully, Enda Kenny
described these findings as “shocking”.
The central figure in the Tribunal was retired
Garda Detective Sergeant Owen Corrigan, who
had served along the Border for his entire
career. Corrigan was a pivotal figure in Special
Branch in Dundalk until 1985.
Corrigan became the target of allegations ten
years after the murders of Breen and Buchanan,
in 'Bandit Country', a vivid account of the IRA in
South Armagh, written by top British journalist
Toby Harnden in 1999.
Corrigan was identified as ‘garda X’ who was
alleged to have furnished information to the IRA
about Breen and Buchanan. Harnden was later
to say that he had received information from an
unidentified source in the RUC Special Branch
claiming this. Kevin Myers, in the Irish Times,
repeated these allegations unadulterated. Cor-
rigan denies any wrongdoing and no finding of
collusion with the IRA in relation to Breen and
Buchanan was made against him despite the
How Smithwick
got diverted
(and made no solid finding of collusion)
A new source tells Village that Smithwick Tribunal
unduly relied on double agent Fulton’s evidence
that Corrigan was the colluder. Confusingly, the
PSNI named someone else as the colluder
by Deirdre Younge
Smithwick Tribunal ended up with strange finding of 'collusion' but no name for
the 'colluder' in murders of RUC men - apparently because Smithwick was swayed
by the successor to the RUC (PSNI) giving untestable very late evidence privately
naming someone more plausible than Owen Corrigan as the colluder. Smithwick
always focused on Corrigan because the Cory Inquiry, which prompted the
Smithwick Tribunal, unduly relied on 2003 evidence of dissembling double agent ‘Fulton’, now challenged by a Village source,
that Corrigan gave relevant information to the IRA about the RUC men, though Fulton seems to have later changed his story
(when giving evidence to Smithwick in 2011) to say that Corrigan gave information to the IRA only about informant Tom
Oliver, and even the changed story was expressly and ignominiously disavowed by Smithwick in a recent High Court
judgment to the extent it implied that Corrigan’s information led to Oliver’s death.
Judge Peter Smithwick
Though it found no smoking
gun in Dundalk, the
Smithwick Tribunal weakly
decided there was less
specific evidence of collusion
by gardaí in the murders of
Buchanan and Breen
CONCENTRATE NOW
July 2 5
Judge Peter Smithwick
Headed the Smithwick Tribunal
from 2005 - 2013
Judge Peter Cory
Headed the Cory Collusion
Inquiry in 2002
THE TRIBUNALS
KEY WITNESSES AND FIGURES, IN SMITHWICK TRIBUNAL
Kevin Fulton/Peter Keeley
Recruited from the Irish Rangers
in 1979 to infiltrate the South
Down Provisional IRA
Chief Inspector
Roy McComb (PSNI)
Gave evidence to the
Smithwick Tribunal
Deputy Chief Constable
Drew Harris (PSNI)
Gave evidence to the
Smithwick Tribunal
Owen Corrigan
Garda Special Branch in Dundalk
until 1985
Patrick ‘Mooch’ Blair
Senior Provisionl IRA member
Alan Mains
Harry Breen’s Sergeant in
Armagh
THE VICTIMS
Chief Superintendent
Harry Breen (RUC)
Shot dead in an ambush by the
Provisional IRA, 20th March 1989
Superintendent
Bob Buchanan (RUC)
Shot dead in an ambush by the
Provisional IRA, 20th March 1989
Tom Oliver
An Irish farmer, abducted and
murdered by the Provisional IRA
in July 1991
INVESTIGATION
2 6 July
most thorough scrutiny by the Smithwick
Tribunal.
In 2003 a Canadian Supreme Court judge,
Peter Cory, was asked by the British and Irish
governments, jointly, to look into whether there
should be independent public inquiries into a
number of Northern murders, including those
of Pat Finucane and Breen and Buchanan.
In its report on the Breen and Buchanan case
in 2003, the Cory Collusion Inquiry details ver-
batim an interview with Harnden conducted in
2000. Cory damningly commented that: “The
interviews revealed how little these gentlemen
relied upon fact and how much they relied on
suspicion and hypothesis”. Cory quotes
Harnden as conceding: “A lot of what was told
to him was circumstantial and that he did not
believe he was in possession of evidence that
could result in any charges”. Not surprisingly,
Harnden did not give evidence to Smithwick.
Alan Mains, who had been Chief Superinten-
dent Breen’s Sergeant in Armagh for three
months before Breen's death, had been
assigned to help Harnden when he was writing
his book. He changed his statement more than
ten years after the murder to say Breen was
fearful of going to Dundalk because he sus
-
pected Corrigan’s links to the IRA, though in
fact it is clear that Breen was justifiably fearful
on a number of grounds. Corrigan plausibly and
consistently denies such links.
On recent visits north of the border, reliable
loyalist and Unionist sources revealed to Village
some details of Breen’s state of mind. They
claim that, the night before he died, Breen met
a close friend and revealed his fear of travelling
to the border. He knew that an IRA action of
some kind was being planned and, as a high-
profile target, he feared for his life. The order to
go to Dundalk, however, had come from the
Chief Constable, Jack Hermon, based on the
determination of then-Northern Secretary of
State, Tom King, to tackle 'Slab' Murphy’s
smuggling empire.
Apart altogether from the Breen and
Buchanan murders, the Smithwick Tribunal
heard an allegation made about the murder of
a small farmer, Tom Oliver in July 1991. He was
abducted from his home in Riverstown on the
Cooley Peninsula by a group including double
agent ‘Kevin Fulton’ aka Peter Keeley, a Newry
man recruited from the British Army in 1979 to
infiltrate the South Down IRA.
Kevin Fulton gave evidence over three days in
December 2012 to the Smithwick Tribunal. In
the course of his evidence Fulton said he was
being paid a living allowance and accommoda-
tion by MI
5
as part of its duty of care to him. He
denied being involved in the kidnapping that
led to Oliver's death, and Smithwick accepted
that.
Oliver was interrogated and murdered in Bel-
leek in County Armagh. The allegation of
murder was regarded as particularly important
by Smithwick, being the one piece of direct evi-
dence of collusion against a member of Dundalk
station.
The problem is that under proper scrutiny
allegations of collusion here - as absolutely
elsewhere else - are contested and, in the end,
unproven.
Fulton's specific and momentous allegation
was that in 2001 Corrigan met Patrick ‘Mooch’
Blair, a senior IRA member, in the car-park of
Fintan’s Céilí House near Dundalk, and told Blair
that Oliver was passing information about the
IRA to the Garda Síochána. Blair is then alleged
to have threatened to murder Tom Oliver, who
was indeed killed soon afterwards. Fulton had
become Blair’s driver,
Fulton was a professionally trained dissem-
bler and kept his handlers in MI5 and Army
intelligence supplied with information for well
over a decade.
Surprisingly, Smithwick was to say of Fulton:
“He sat only metres from me and I observed him
throughout. He was a very impressive and cred-
ible witness and I have formed the view that his
evidence was truthful”.
Fulton now distances himself from 'Unsung
Hero', a graphic book about his life. Neverthe-
less it is notable that at no stage in the book
does Fulton mention a garda in Dundalk station
passing information to the IRA. Nor is there any
evidence that he passed information about Cor-
rigan or other Dundalk gardaí, to his handlers.
Just weeks before his final report Cory came
to Dundalk and met campaigners who were
looking for an inquiry into the murders of Breen
and Buchanan. When they asked if he was going
to call for an inquiry he said: “I know something
happened here but I have no evidence to call for
an inquiry”. When asked “What do you need?”
(He obviously needed direct evidence of
NEWS
Breen and Buchanan shot on the Edenappa Road about 500 yards from the border crossing
Alan Mains
Alan Mains, who had been
Breen’s Sergeant in Armagh
changed his statement
ten years after the murder
to say Breen was fearful
of going to Dundalk, as he
suspected Corrigan
Owen Corrigan was identified
by Toby Harnden, relying
on little but hypothesis, as
‘garda X’ who was alleged to
have furnished information
to PIRA about Breen and
Buchanan from the RUC
Special Branch
Toby Harnden: top journalist
July 2 7
collusion), normally reliable
sources told Village: “They [the
campaigners] wrote up a statement
and gave it to Fulton to sign”. The state-
ment said Owen Corrigan had passed information to
Patrick ‘Mooch’ Blair in a car with Fulton.
Ultimately, for whatever reason, Cory was convinced
after meeting Fulton and, according to sources, receiv-
ing a statement from Fulton (right). He cited Fulton’s
evidence as a major reason for calling for a public
inquiry into the Breen and Buchanan murders,
focusing on Dundalk Garda station. That
inquiry became the Smithwick
Tribunal.
However, clearly there is a shadow
over the statement which inspired
Cory's call for what became the
Smithwick Tribunal. If this is so it
rewrites the history of both
inquiries.
Soon after that, Fulton went to Cory and read the
statement. Village's sources, however, are adamant
that the initial statement as given to Cory concerned
Corrigan giving information to IRA member Patrick
‘Mooch’ Blair about the arrival of Breen and Buchanan
at Dundalk Garda station. Village's sources insists that
the statement described how Detective Sergeant Cor-
rigan came out of Dundalk Station and said to 'Mooch'
Blair - who was supposedly sitting in a car with Fulton
- “they're here”, after Breen and Buchanan had entered
Dundalk.
Crucially, by the time Fulton reached
Smithwick the alleged collusion had
morphed into allegations about Cor-
rigan’s passing ‘Mooch’ Blair
information about Tom Oliver. Not
having access to the original Cory
documents it has not been possi-
ble to verify - and Patrick Blair and
Corrigan utterly deny - the allega-
tions. A description of this
scandalous contradiction appeared in
a 2007 story by Suzanne Breen in the
‘Sunday Tribune’.
Suzanne Breen did not name Fulton but
reported: “An IRA informer also alleged Garda collusion
in the Breen and Buchanan murders. A source told the
‘Sunday Tribune’ that this informer claimed that he and
‘M’, a senior IRA figure, travelled to Dundalk on 20th
March 1989. While Breen and Buchanan were inside the
Garda station, a garda left the building and told the two
IRA men that the two men would be leaving shortly”.
Among the pieces of evidence accepted by Smithwick
in a chapter devoted to Fulton’s evidence was firstly that
Corrigan had been known as “our friend” to the IRA,
someone who gave information to the South Armagh
brigade. Fulton initially said he knew Corrigan was “our
friend” but under cross-examination admitted he just
“believed” he was. He alleged that on the day of the
Breen and Buchanan murders a member of the local IRA
unit told ‘Mooch’ Blair and Fulton that “our friend” gave
information about Breen and Buchanan.
He gave a second piece of hearsay evidence: that Cor-
rigan managed to destroy evidence of bomb-making in
a house in Omeath in 1989. In fact Corrigan had been
on sick leave from Dundalk and played no part in the
investigation into the Omeath incident. The third and
most serious allegation made by Fulton concerned the
alleged meeting, descibed above and first mentioned
in Cory, between Corrigan and ‘Mooch’ Blair outside
Fintan’s Céilí House in which Corrigan is alleged to have
passed information about how Tom Oliver informed to
There is a shadow
over the statement
which inspired
Cory's call for
what became the
Smithwick Tribunal.
If this is so it
rewrites the history
of both inquiries.
Crucially, by the time Fulton reached
Smithwick the alleged collusion
had morphed into allegations about
Corrigan’s passing ‘Mooch’ Blair
information about Tom Oliver.
Owen Corrigan
Kevin Fulton /
Peter Keeley
Fulton statement to Cory Inquiry. Later, though significantly not here where it might
have been expected, Fulton made a key allegation of collusion against Corrigan
2 8 July
the Garda about IRA weapons found on his land.
The first two pieces of Fulton’s evidence were
hearsay, but the Oliver allegation was Smith-
wicks' only piece of direct evidence of collusion
of any sort, by anybody, with the IRA after years
of public and private hearings. It is this evi-
dence, vehemently denied by Corrigan, which
was the subject of the statement by the Tribunal
that brought the Judicial Review to a halt and
removes the taint of involvement from
Corrigan.
But Smithwicks’ initial acceptance of Fulton’s
evidence, about Corrigan and Oliver, ran
directly contrary to evidence delivered to Smith-
wick from the PSNI and the UK Security
Services, in May and October 2012. Smithwick
stated, with apparent satisfaction, that the Tri-
bunal was in a unique position as it was
receiving evidence and co-operation from the
Northern and UK authorities. However, he
ignored or downplayed this evidence in his
report. Anyone reading the report must work
hard to find the details of this.
Everyone, including probably you dear
reader, thinks the Smithwick Tribunal was
about collusion, which everybody thinks it
found, but ultimately not one allegation of col-
lusion remained solid and firm at the conclusion
of proceedings.
In a dramatic last-minute intervention, on 2
May 2012 PSNI Chief Inspector Roy McComb
attested the following to the Tribunal:
• The IRA had received information regarding
Breen and Buchanan from a detective Garda
officer who had not been publicly identified
to the Smithwick Tribunal and that this indi-
vidual had been paid a considerable amount
of money for this information.
•
Intelligence indicated that this officer also
provided information about Tom Oliver and
continued to provide information to the IRA
for a number of years.
This extraordinary information was under-
pinned by the then Assistant Chief Constable,
now Deputy Head of the PSNI, Drew Harris, an
officer significantly senior to McComb, who gave
further evidence to the Tribunal, in October 2012.
Harris stated:
“I would make the point that the inquiry was
provided with all the information which related
to the murders of Breen and Buchanan. What
has happened now is that more information has
become available to the Police Service and, as
I have said, that is live information and of the
moment. The initial provision of information
was both by ourselves and the Security Ser
-
vices, and... was a full disclosure of the
information that we felt able to give”. Smithwick
was being assailed by last-minute, game-
changing new evidence.
Harris was cross-examined by Owen Corri-
gan’s Senior Council, Jim O'Callaghan SC:
Q “Were you aware, Mr Harris, when you read
these five pieces of intelligence…that they
were beneficial to my client, Mr Corrigan,
who has been the focus of this Tribunal
inquiry for a number of years”.
A “Yes”.
Q “Did you see any unfairness in the fact that
the PSNI hadn't released this information
earlier?”.
A “This material, no, because this material
was released as quickly as we could manage
to release, given our other
responsibilities”.
But who is the Fourth Man about whom the two
pieces of intelligence relate who was just
revealed in 2012?”.
Counsel for the Tribunal Mary Laverty SC and
Drew Harris had the following exchange (led by
Laverty):
Q. "Do you believe Mr Harris that there is any
information that you could obtain for the Tri-
bunal in the near future" ?
A. "Well contact with an individual, and hope-
fully other individuals is ongoing and
hopefully within a few days to a week I will
know whether I have further information
which will be of assistance".
The cross-examination of Corrigan was over-
shadowed by the new information. When Roy
McComb arrived with new intelligence, Owen
Corrigan had been in the witness box for just
one day; the cross- examination by the Tribunal
hadn't begun.
But while McComb and later Harris provided
succour to the three gardaí who had been the
relentless focus of the Tribunal, Senior Garda
and their lawyers went on the offensive against
the quality of this new intelligence. Diarmaid
McGuinness SC fumed that he regarded the
information as
“nonsense on stilts”.
As it was impossible to “get behind” the
intelligence, it was impossible to assess it. The
concentration on methodology therefore dis-
tracted from the extraordinary content and the
possibility it posed of identifying the 'Fourth
Man'.
In February 2013, counsel for the Tribunal
Mary Laverty SC announced that the Tribunal
had gone on to check out the new information
with some PSNI and Garda Síochána members,
but the inquiries had run into the ground.
The Tribunal unsurprisingly declared that the
murder of Tom Oliver was not part of its remit,
but then accepted evidence that Corrigan had
given information that set him up for murder.
This was an unusual approach and of course
Corrigan took legal action by way of Judicial
Review. Following discussions between the
parties, on 25 May 2016, the Tribunal con
-
firmed, in a statement read to the High Court,
that, whatever evidence it had heard, its final
report had made no finding that the killing of
Oliver was as a result of information the ex-
garda provided to the Provisional IRA.
The action was then struck out by the High
Court on the following terms:
“While the Tribunal accepted the evidence of
Kevin Fulton there was no finding in the Tribu-
nal’s report that the killing of Mr Oliver was as
a result of the information provided by Mr Cor-
rigan to the IRA”.
The Smithwick Inquiry ended with an enig-
matic conclusion: a collusion - which this article
has shown was not satisfactorily proven, with
no named colluder.
NEWS
Counsel for the Tribunal Mary Laverty SC
announced that the Tribunal had gone on to
check out the 'Fourth Man' colluder, but the
inquiries had run into the ground
Patrick
‘Mooch’ Blair
Smithwick massively
downplayed Fulton’s
evidence in his report... and
ended with an enigmatic
conclusion - a collusion,
with no colluder
July 2 9
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