The Dáil will find out later today if the Smithwick Tribunal has found evidence to support claims of gardaí collusion in the IRA murders of the two most senior police officers to be killed in the Troubles.
Mr Justice Peter Smithwick’s report into the allegations surrounding the 1989 deaths of RUC Chief Superintendent Harry Breen and Superintendent Robert Buchanan is due to be handed in today.
The officers were ambushed by an IRA gang on a rural border road in south Armagh, minutes after leaving a high-level meeting at Dundalk Garda Station.
For the last eight years, the tribunal has been trying to establish how much An Garda Siochána knew about what was a major coup for republican terrorists.
Harry Breen and Robert Buchanan were unarmed and on their way home when they were ambushed by IRA men posing as an Army patrol on 20 March 1989.
They had been meeting with gardaí in Dundalk and were not allowed to carry their weapons over the Irish border into the Republic.
The attack on the two men was planned to such a degree that their vehicle was directed to a specific spot, out of sight of a watchtower, before they were gunned down.
Robert Buchanan, a father of two, was already dead when he was shot again in the head.
Harry Breen, also a father of two, was badly wounded and waved a white hankie as he pleaded for mercy from the gunmen. None was shown.
They shot him dead at close range.
The two officers had been assigned to efforts to cut off IRA funding by smashing its huge smuggling operation in south Armagh, in a joint operation between the RUC and An Garda.
But their deaths came just two weeks after they had received their orders.
The Smithwick Tribunal heard from retired detective Alan Mains, who worked under Harry Breen in Armagh and knew him well, that his former boss had not trusted some gardaí.
It also heard he had fears about travelling to Dundalk on the day that he was killed.
From day one, there was a suspicion that there was a ‘mole’ among gardaí.
While the possibility was swiftly ruled out by police on both sides of the border, the damning claims refused to go away.
Serious doubts were raised that the IRA was capable of mounting such a well-planned operation so quickly, without inside information.
The Smithwick Tribunal was established after a judicial review of eight murders – including lawyers Rosemary Nelson and Pat Finucane, loyalist leader Billy Wright and father-of-two Robert Hamill.
Judge Peter Cory decided in 2004 that further investigation was also warranted into the murders of Harry Breen and Robert Buchanan.
At the centre of the case are three former Garda officers – Owen Corrigan, Leo Colton and Finbarr Hickey, who all strenuously deny passing information to the IRA.
An Garda Siochána also refutes allegations that there was a mole within the force.
The IRA has also denied being privy to inside information, with former members giving statements to the tribunal but stopping short of giving evidence under oath.
They claimed that Robert Buchanan’s car had been under surveillance for months and that up to 40 members were involved in the double murder.
But while they insist they acted without any information from gardaí, the intelligence picture seems to tell a different story.
The most explosive evidence came late to the Smithwick inquiry and in the form of PSNI intelligence.
Conversations recorded by officers during an investigation into dissident republican activity contained claims by former IRA members that gardaí had passed information to the Provisionals.
Further allegations were made that a fourth Garda officer not under investigation by Smithwick had colluded in the killings of Harry Breen and Robert Buchanan.
It was also claimed that the details about the movements of Lord and Lady Gibson prior to their murders near the border in 1987 had come from gardaí.
Previous revelations had included claims by the British intelligence officer who handled the IRA agent ‘Stakeknife’ that many of the gang who killed the two RUC men were security force agents.
That raised questions regarding how much they may have told their handlers about the plot.
A British agent who had infiltrated the IRA also previously claimed that he was told by a republican that the gunmen were tipped off by gardaí.
And a retired Army brigadier had revealed that radio traffic between IRA members on the day in question began hours before the murders.
The Smithwick report has been printed and bound and will be given to the clerk of the Dáil today.
It will then go to the Director of Public Prosecutions in the Republic to see if there are any avenues for charges to be brought in relation to the case.
Source: UTV
