Senior garda casts doubt on alleged informer

Alleged 1990s IRA informer Adrienne McGlinchey was recalled by a senior garda officer today as “immature and giddy, but “someone you should keep your eye on”.

But Superintendent John Fitzgerald also said of the information claimed to have been provided to the gardaí by the Letterkenny woman: “Everything she ever mentioned came to nothing.”

And he went on to point to a “cloak of secrecy” that had existed among the gardaí over Ms McGlinchey’s dealing with her two detective handlers.

Mr Fitzgerald presented his assessment of Ms McGlinchey and the standard of what she told the Garda Siochána to the ongoing Morris Tribunal probe into allegations of corruption against members of the force in Co Donegal a decade and more ago.

At the time, he was the Letterkenny-based divisional officer, and knew of Ms McGlinchey before and after she allegedly began providing information to the gardaí.

Ms McGlinchey, together with Detective Superintendent Kevin Lennon and Detective Garda Noel McMahon, is claimed to have prepared explosives for subsequent use in bogus garda finds of terrorist arms.

The two officers have denied the allegations, and Ms McGlinchey has consistently maintained that she was never an informer.

The superintendent conceded that at one time, significance had been attached to information about the IRA given to the gardaí by Ms McGlinchey.

He added: “I would have been conscious that she was a person to keep an eye on because of her associations.

“But there is no way I would have associated her with being in any active unit of the IRA. I was a very experienced person and knew how they worked their cell units. They would have people tried and tested and there is no way she would be involved in anything like that. She would not be privy to it.

“But I was still conscious she might be used for something.”

Mr Fitzgerald said he believed Ms McGlinchey had been “looking for notice”, possibly with the Provisional IRA and the the gardaí.

The superintendent also referred to Ms McGlinchey’s friendship with Yvonne Devine, her teenage flatmate at the time, and a niece of senior IRA figure Pearse McAuley.

He told the tribunal: “We would have been conscious of her (Ms McGlinchey’s) activities, especially when this second young lady came on the scene, because of the background of the second young lady – certainly not because of the background of Adrienne McGlinchey.

“Her family were very well known, and there would be connection that ever I knew of, with any subversive organisation.”

The superintendent highlighted, too, the “cloak of secrecy” that he said had surrounded Ms McGlinchey’s links with her garda handlers, Kevin Lennon and Noel McMahon.

He knew nothing about the “stand-off” policy towards Ms McGlinchey, which effectively meant that she was never charged with an offence, despite being arrested on a number of occasions, and felt he had been excluded.

“I never doubted that anything wrong was being done at that time. But I knew that as the superintendent in Letterkenny, I was not being treated by those people in the way that I should have been treated.

“You felt that the carpet could be pulled out from under you at any stage. I had that feeling – and I had good reason for it.”

At one stage he was told by Kevin Lennon and Chief Superintendent Denis Fitzpatrick that there was a “mole” in his office.

Mr Fitzgerald reported: “Of course, I took that seriously. I kept a close eye on my staff and was satisfied that they were all sound.”

The current phase of the tribunal, being chaired by former High Court President Mr Justice Frederick Morris, is focusing on the claims about mixing explosives.

The marathon inquiry returned to that dimension of the allegations against gardaí last September after a gap of four months.

During the summer, the tribunal looked into separate allegations, centring on controversy over the mystery roadside death six years ago of Raphoe cattle dealer Richie Barron.

That module of the process has now been adjourned until later this year and a series of other issues are also due to be dealt with afterwards.