Alleged informer's IRA friendship 'not important'

A friendship between alleged informer Adrienne McGlinchey and a niece of top IRA figure Pearse McAuley played no part in a senior detective’s assessment of her as a source about terrorist activities, the Morris Tribunal was told today.

Central inquiry figure Detective Superintendent Kevin Lennon rejected consideration of the family link between the man who once shot his way out of police custody in Brixton, and Yvonne Devine, a flatmate of Ms McGlinchey in Co Donegal during the 1990s, when examining the credentials of the Letterkenny woman as a genuine informer.

While admitting he knew of Ms Devine’s family background, he insisted in the face of cross-examination from her lawyer, Brian Walsh: “I did not factor that in. I don’t know what other people thought. I had little knowledge of her.”

The superintendent, in the witness box at the Garda corruption probe for a ninth day, admitted he had referred to Ms Devine’s IRA connection in a Garda report, but maintained the information had come from other statements that he had seen.

Pearse McAuley, currently serving a prison sentence for his part in the shooting dead of Detective Jerry McCabe, was named as the uncle of Ms Devine during the early stages of the tribunal.

Kevin Lennon and another detective, Garda Noel McMahon, have denied claims that they prepared explosives, together with Ms McGlinchey, for use in bogus arms finds.

Ms McGlinchey has rejected allegations that she was ever either an informer or a member of the IRA.

In line with a request from Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, today’s tribunal sitting observed a three-minute period of silence at 11am in honour of those who died in last week’s Madrid train bombings.