Garda rejects claims he prepared explosives found in bogus arms finds

GARDA Noel McMahon yesterday rejected claims that he prepared explosives for bogus arms finds in a bid to advance his career.

Completing a record 23 days of evidence at the Morris Tribunal, he insisted that he had never been interested in promotion or even applied for a written sergeant's examination. Dismissing suggestions that he had attempted to speed up his progress within the force, the detective garda maintained: "I was enjoying the work I was doing and getting a lot of satisfaction out of it and time just marched on.

"It was mostly subversive work that I was involved in and the post of sergeant would have involved a lot of mundane administrative duties and I was not that keen on office work, he said.