Menu
Ireland's political and cultural magazine
1 6 Nov/Dec
advisor in their tidiness. It gets more chaotic and
interesting as the thoughtful reflective politician
emerges. Let’s go back to the sustainability
issue. Surely the political response to climate
change reflects everything that is bad about our
supposedly ‘new’ politics? Climate change must
run a horse and cart through his neat
formulae?
Donnelly is irrepressibly positive and nervous
of general negativity. The response to: “climate
change is not an Irish failure, it is a global failure.
It reflects a weakness in democratic systems
rather than Irish politics. Political systems are
short-term by nature”. Surely there is also a spe-
cific failure of political leadership in Ireland?
Donnelly falls back on: “the public get the politi-
cians they choose. Sustainability, both
ecological and economic, is the greatest chal-
lenge and opportunity we face. We either figure
it out or ultimately we are dead. Yet, we don’t
elect many Green Party TDs. That’s not political
failure, it’s public choice”.
Then his innate thoughtfulness gets the better
of his innate ‘positivity’. “We should be ashamed
of our response to the Paris Agreement”. A tough
critique of the Irish political system is bubbling
away in the background. “There is a lack of
expertise in the political system and in the
administrative system. We don’t have a mixed
list system and we don’t get experts into politics,
we get generalists. We have a highly protected
civil service and little capacity to address gaps
in expertise. There is very little movement
between industry, academia, politics, the public
service and civil service, and civil society”.
He has an engagement with issues of environ-
mental sustainability in real life. He wants
Wicklow to be the first carbon-neutral county. He
enthuses over the “social solidarity and pride”
such a move would generate as well as the “eco
-
nomic potential” it would hold. He boldly does
so in that order too.
However, what about equality and all this talk
of opportunities? He gets a bit testy. He has been
clear about “everyone having an equal opportu-
nity to be the best that they can be”. He has
evidenced his concern for “community activity
to address disadvantage”. But isn’t opportunity
just an illusion? We offer opportunities confident
in the knowledge that there are whole groups of
people that will never be able to take them up.
Opportunity is merely a cover for lack of interest
in tackling equality.
Upon reflection, Donnelly explains what he
means. “Imagine we tracked 1,000 children from
Foxrock and 1,000 children from Fassaroe, a dis-
advantaged area in Bray, and we look at them
when they are 25 years old. When I say I want
equal opportunity I mean that when we look at
these young adults, we would see broadly simi
-
lar levels of achievement in socio-economic
outcomes, happiness, and empowerment
between the two groups”. “It wouldn’t matter a
damn where you are from, how wealthy your par-
ents are, how many letters they had after their
names”. This is closer to a vision of equality of
outcome, way more ambitious.
This equality requires: “massive additional
investment in education that is needs-led and
targeted at disadvantage. We need to direct
resources, intellectual capital, and new ideas
into disadvantaged communities and disadvan-
taged families in other areas”. Equality of
outcome does require such positive action, but
why is this not happening? Donnelly becomes
passionate, convinced and thoughtful. “We
have paid lip service to this issue. Have we
taken it seriously? I am not sure we have”. He
does not hold back now about politics “lacking
vision, lacking capability and lacking leader-
ship” when it comes to addressing inequality.
He still emphasises his thoughts on the lazi-
ness and danger of “politics bashing” just to
be sure.
Donnelly has always been an advocate of
equality budgeting. It is a passion that invari-
ably throws those who would pigeon-hole him
as economistic and right-wing into a bit of
quandary. He is currently working with Kather-
ine Zappone to advance the commitment in the
Programme for Government for equality and
human rights budgeting. In the debate on this
approach on the Budget Oversight Committee
he stood out as one of the few members who
actually understood what it was about. If this
approach to the Budget was to be effectively
put in place it would offer a new and unex-
pected foundation for a more equal society.
That would be no mean measure of a ‘new’
politics.
Stephen Donnelly ends the interview with a
suggestion that this is really the point from
which we should have begun. He is engaged
and thinking and ready for more, despite being
thirty minutes late for his next appointment. I
don’t know what his next appointment thought
of all that, but I was impressed. He asserts that
he is “full of hope and ambition for the coun-
try”. I borrowed a bit of that and left the
encounter with a spring in my step. We need a
bit more of all that in our politics.
To build a country with
opportunities and dignity we
need first to secure sustainable
exchequer revenue
NEWS
Nov/Dec 1 7
T
HE SMITHWICK Tribunal was set up in 2005, by
the Irish Government on the advice of Michael
McDowell, then Minister for Justice, and sat in
public in Blackhall Place from 2011 until 2013,
examining the possibility of Garda collusion in
the deaths of Chief Superintendent Harry Breen and
Superintendent Bob Buchanan, of the Royal
Ulster Constabulary (RUC) who were mur-
dered North of the Border in March 1989,
after a brief meeting in Dundalk Garda
Station. The purpose of the RUC offic
-
ers’ 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.
The Smithwick Tribunal ended up in
2011 with a strange, abstract, finding of
‘collusion’ in the murders of the two RUC
men. Though it found “no smoking gun”
in Dundalk, 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” and
a public and media jaded in
affairs Northern determined
rather vaguely to remember
that Smithwick was about a
search for evidence of collu
-
sion which it had somehow
found. What is extraordinary
is that Smithwick provided no name for the ‘colluder’,
though it clearly for a long time thought it was Owen Cor-
rigan – even though it wasn’t. One of the reasons for this
is that there may in fact have been no Garda colluder, a
big embarrassment for those who felt a tribunal needed
to be instigated and, worse, for those who conducted the
inquiry without ever drawing attention to the inaccuracy
of the premise that led to it but who saved face by con-
tinuingly, through the eight years of its existence,
pretending there was one, albeit with less and less
specificity.
Smithwick was swayed into its collusion abstraction
by the PSNI (which succeeded the RUC) giving untesta
-
ble, very-late evidence to the Tribunal privately naming
a fourth garda who was more plausible than Owen Cor
-
rigan as the colluder.
Killusion
Full-time for ‘Fulton’ whose
changing and inaccurate evidence
sparked the Smithwick Tribunal and
whose wide-ranging role is beginning
to emerge in other Tribunals
by Deirdre Younge
The Smithwick Tribunal was instigated to pressurise the British Government, tribally, to hold a
full public inquiry into the death of Pat Finucane. It was determined to find Garda collusion in
the murder north of the border of two RUC officers just after they had met gardaí in Dundalk,
but at the last minute evidence from the PSNI stopped it finding Special Branch officer Owen
Corrigan to be the colluder, which he certainly anyway wasn’t. The Tribunal threw up
incidental allegations about the murder of a Louth farmer, Tom Oliver, and the role of double
agent, Stakeknife – now being separately investigated – in that murder, and then made an
abstract, ungrounded finding of "collusion", which lazy observers have ubiquitously accepted.
The Tribunal threw up incidental
allegations about the murder
of a Louth farmer, Tom Oliver,
and the role of double agent,
Stakeknife – now being
separately investigated –
in that murder
Kevin Fulton/Peter Keeley
Judge Peter Smithwick
INVESTIGATION
1 8 Nov/Dec
THE TRIBUNALS
Kevin Fulton/Peter
Keeley
Freddie Scappaticci
Deputy Chief Constable
Drew Harris (PSNI)
Owen Corrigan
Patrick ‘Mooch’ Blair
member
Chief Superintendent
Harry Breen (RUC)
Superintendent
Bob Buchanan (RUC)
Tom Oliver
KEY WITNESSES AND FIGURES, IN SMITHWICK TRIBUNAL
THE VICTIMS
Judge Peter Smithwick
Headed the
Judge Peter Cory
Headed the
in 2002
S
MITHWICK ALWAYS focused on Corrigan as
the colluder because the Cory Inquiry,
which prompted the Smithwick Tribunal,
unduly relied on the 2003 evidence of a dissem-
bling double agent known as ‘Kevin Fulton’ - now
challenged by a source who spoke to Village -
that Corrigan gave deadly information to the IRA
about the RUC men. In its report the Smithwick
Tribunal stated [at 15.1.2]: “This statement was
a key factor in Judge Cory’s' decision to recom
-
mend the establishment of this Tribunal, and
Kevin Fulton was therefore an important witness
before this Tribunal”.
In any event Fulton actually 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 a 37-year-old
Cooley farmer, informant Tom Oliver, who An
Phoblacht then accused of passing on informa-
tion to Garda Special Branch. Oliver was
kidnapped, allegedly interrogated by
Scappaticci and subsequently murdered. The
changed story was that Corrigan gave informa-
tion about Oliver, not about the doomed RUC
men; but even the changed story was expressly
and ignominiously disavowed by Smithwick,
under pressure in a recent High Court case, to
the extent it implied that Corrigan’s information
led to Oliver’s death.
In other words everything related to Fulton col-
lapsed, despite Smithwick’s paean to him.
Kevin Fulton had begun to engage with the
Smithwick Tribunal in 2006. In its opening state-
ment in 2011, the Tribunal made it clear that “Mr
Fulton has elaborated on and expanded the
statement he provided to Judge Cory”.
The expanded statement was given to Corri
-
gan’s lawyers in November 2011. For the first
time they saw the central allegation made by
Fulton which sensationally implicated Freddie
Scappaticci, ‘Stakeknife’. It did not concern the
murders of the two RUC Officers but instead
implicated Sergeant Owen Corrigan in giving
information which would lead to the death of an
alleged IRA informer, Tom Oliver.
The first reason not to believe Fulton is that a
book about him makes no mention of any of this.
Admittedly Fulton now distances himself from
the graphic book called ‘Unsung Hero’ about his
life but this is chiefly understandable as an
A public and media jaded in
affairs Northern determined
rather vaguely to remember
that Smithwick was about
a search for evidence of
collusion which it had
somehow found. In fact it
had not.
Fulton: the man whose evidence led to a falsely
perceived need for the Tribunal
SMITHWICK TRIBUNAL
NEWS
Nov/Dec 1 9
expedient in the face of the, at least nine, PSNI
Investigations arising from it, and the many civil
actions in the pipeline. He has already had to pay
compensation to the family of Eoin Morley, a
Newry man shot dead in 1990, after failing even
to enter an appearance in the Belfast High Court
to proceedings by his mother.
Nevertheless it is undeniably notable that at
no stage in the book does Fulton mention a garda
in Dundalk station passing information to the
IRA, though it was scarcely something he’d be
expected to omit. Nor is there any other evidence
– of any sort - that he passed information about
Corrigan or other Dundalk gardaí, to his
handlers.
Bizarrely Smithwick warmly endorsed Fulton,
a man who had made a lifetime “career” of
deception, as a highly credible witness, in his
final report, even in effect if he completely and
absolutely disavowed him in the subsequent
legal action. Surprisingly, Smithwick was to say
of Fulton: “He sat only metres from me and I
observed him throughout. He was a very impres-
sive and credible witness and I have formed the
view that his evidence was truthful”.
However, clearly there is a shadow over the
statement from Fulton which inspired Cory’s call
for what became the Smithwick Tribunal. If this
is so it rewrites the history of both inquiries.
Fulton’s' similar role in other high-profile
investigations will emerge in the coming months.
But what exactly was the core allegations that
convinced Cory and then hung Smithwick out to
dry?
This is the Fulton Statement as published orig-
inally in the Cory Report in 2003:
“In 1979 I enlisted in the British Army. Within
months of my posting, I was recruited by a Brit
-
ish Intelligence Agency to act as an agent. In
this capacity, I became a member of the Provi-
sional IRA.
On one occasion in the late 1980s, I was with
my senior IRA Commander, Joseph Patrick Blair
and another individual in my car. I knew the
other individual to be [Owen] Corrigan, a
member of Special Branch of the Gardai. I was
introduced by Blair to Corrigan. I knew that Cor
-
rigan, who was stationed in Dundalk, was
passing information to the Provisional IRA.
I was in Dundalk on the day of the ambush of
Superintendent Buchanan and Chief Superinten-
dent Breen. I am aware that, after the ambush
took place, Joseph Patrick Blair was told by a
member of PIRA that Sergeant Corrigan had tel-
ephoned the Provisional IRA to tell them that
officers Breen and Buchanan were at Dundalk
Station.
I should add that I know nothing about the
murder of Lord Justice and Lady Gibson.
I have read this statement and its contents are
true and accurate. - Kevin Fulton”.
Judge Cory redacted parts of his report so –
extraordinarily - it’s not possible to know
whether any parts of this particular statement
were withheld. Corrigan’s legal team was only
given access to the unredacted report on 17 May
2011 according to an affidavit drawn up by the
Tribunal solicitor in 2014. This gave notice to Cor-
rigan’s legal team that Fulton’s statement would
be an issue, as it turns out a crucial and deter-
mining issue, for the Tribunal. However, the core
allegation of collusion i.e. precisely what exact
information passed from Corrigan to a PIRA
member was not in the Cory statement. Nor was
the Smithwick version of the statement released
until November 2011. The statement as pub-
lished, in what the Tribunal says is the
unredacted version of Cory, contains one
description of an event – an alleged meeting in
a car between a Special Branch man and a
member of PIRA. However, Corrigan emphati
-
cally denies this ever happened - as did Patrick
Blair, the PIRA man who he allegedly met. As this
is the kind of meeting policemen have regularly
organised for information gathering purposes
the paragraph itself is meaningless without
knowing the content of the conversation. The
rest of the statement is a hearsay allegation, that
Owen Corrigan was a man known as “our friend”
who passed information to PIRA. Fulton on
cross-examination substantially resiled from
even this and actually changed his evidence
under cross-examination.
However Fulton’s one piece of direct evidence,
which he accepted was at the core of his allega-
tions of collusion was an alleged meeting
between PIRA South Down ASU Commander Pat-
rick ‘Mooch’ Blair and former Special Branch
Sergeant Owen Corrigan outside Fintan Callan's
Céili House, – a busy roadhouse on the main
road, open to public view. Mooch Blair couldn't
drive at this point which is why Fulton, as his
driver, says he was in the car. But for the first
time (insofar as can be ascertained) in March
2011, after interacting with campaigners, politi-
cians and security forces about his knowledge
of PIRA since 1999, Fulton “revealed” the con-
tents of the conversation between Blair and
Corrigan. He alleged that Corrigan told Blair that
a Cooley Farmer, Tom Oliver, was giving informa-
tion to the Garda about PIRA weapons and their
movements. After the meeting with Corrigan,
Blair was then alleged to have threatened to
murder Oliver. Fulton then alleged that soon
after the meeting Tom Oliver was picked up at
his home by a PIRA team, and handed over to
Freddie Scappaticci for interrogation. Oliver was
subsequently murdered, it is believed, in the
Cooley Mountains. Fulton said the date of the
alleged meeting between Blair and Corrigan was
sometime in early 1991 though he couldn't be
pinned down to a precise day. He was certain
however that weeks after the date of this alleged
meeting in July 1991 Tom Oliver was interrogated
and shot dead. His body was found with a
number of bullets in the back of the head in Bel-
leeks, Co Armagh.
But the date of the alleged meeting outside
the Céili House, in the crucial Fulton statement,
changed from late 1989 in Cory to 1991 in Smith
-
wick. This is a curious jump considering a senior
Judge like Peter Cory would have been punctili
-
ous about the accuracy of his reporting of
statements. Fulton’s statement changed
between Cory and Smithwick. Though Fulton had
been interacting with the Tribunal since 2006,
Judge Smithwick in December 2011 gave per-
sonal assurances to Corrigan’s legal
representatives that the Fulton statement hadn't
changed beyond minor corrections.
While cross-examining a witness in 2011 Ful
-
ton’s lawyer revealed that Fulton would say that
he was at a meeting in Blair’s house on the 20th
March when he and Blair were told by a PIRA
member who came into the house after the
shootings that the Garda had given info about
Breen and Buchanan. Senior counsel for Owen
Corrigan, Jim O'Callaghan, then says that this is
a change of evidence and the first he has heard
of this meeting, occasioning the following
exchange:
O'Callaghan: Why did you mislead Judge Cory?
Fulton: I would not have purposely misled Judge
Cory.
Everything
related to Fulton
collapsed,
despite
Smithwick’s
paean to him
Fintan Callan's Céili House: exposed, so an unlikely locus for
a surreptitious meeting between a Special Branch man and a
PIRA leader
