Retired Garda hits back at 'baseless' bugging claims

A retired detective superintendent today said it would have been logistically impossible for him to listen to bugged conversations in a garda station.

John McGinley, who left the force in 2005 with his career tarnished by poor police operations in Donegal, said the allegation was baseless and false.

He is facing claims at the Morris Tribunal from shamed ex-detective John White that a visiting room in Letterkenny station was bugged in 1996 during the botched investigation into the death of cattle dealer Richie Barron.

White alleges officers used the detective inspector’s office to listen in on private conversations between suspects and their lawyers.

White said he went to the DI’s room one evening and saw Mr McGinley listening to a tape recorder and hearing a solicitor’s voice.

“I can’t understand why [former] Sergeant White went to the DI’s office on that evening given that there was no DI,” he said.

He asked the tribunal chairman Mr Justice Frederick Morris: “And what was he [White] doing?

“There was no DI in Letterkenny, chairman.”

During often heated cross examination, White asked Mr McGinley was he lying.

“If it happened I would tell you it happened … I would,” Mr McGinley went on.

“Chairman it’s like a great many other allegations the he [White] made against me that are baseless and false.”

White was sacked for corruption last year.

The bugging allegation has been supported by two other gardai. Garda Tina Fowley, who broke rank to help uncover corruption, claims she witnessed senior officers talking about using technical teams to try to glean information from suspects.

Retired Garda John Dooley, who last year blew the whistle on systematic abuse of suspects, has claimed he saw White and former garda surveillance expert Joseph Costelloe talking about bugging the station.

Mr McGinley was a uniformed inspector in 1996 and a year later secured a promotion to plain clothes inspector role. He eventually rose to detective superintendent.

Mr McGinley’s retirement was agreed following a meeting with Garda Commissioner Noel Conroy in June 2005 after the second tribunal report was published.

He was found to have been partly to blame for the botched Barron hit-and-run inquiry.

Mr McGinley admitted at the tribunal in 2006 he changed interview notes a year after they were taken and at one stage candidly described the Barron investigation as a cock-up.