Retired superintendent 'looked after' hundreds of summonses, court told

A retired superintendent and four gardaí deny charges they acted unlawfully in quashing pending or potential road traffic summonses for motorists.

A retired Garda Superintendent gave evidence in court on Wednesday that he “looked after” hundreds of summonses while in the role and that he received almost daily requests about such matters — including from Garda commissioners and elected TDs.

Retired Limerick Divisional Superintendent Seán Corcoran, with an address in Co Clare, was giving evidence in the trial of retired Superintendent Eamon O’Neill and four serving gardaí at Limerick Circuit Criminal Court. 

All five accused deny charges they acted unlawfully in quashing pending or potential road traffic summonses for motorists.

Mr Corcoran, cross examined by Mr O’Neill’s barrister, Felix McEnroy, senior counsel, was asked if it had been “unusual” for members of the public to contact him, “in relation to particular concerns that they might have had, in relation to summonses, or road traffic matters, or Garda matters, or whatever”? 

Mr Corcoran replied: “It was very usual, judge, in my time as a superintendent.” 

“I’d say every second day I got a phone-call from somebody, between commissioners, all [Garda] ranks down along; members of the Dáil, their secretaries; TDs, and councillors,” Mr Corcoran said.

“When you are a ‘super’ they all know where you are and they’d contact you. So, I would say I probably looked after a couple of hundred different summonses in my time,” he added.

Operation Silo

Mr Corcoran said that when he was a detective inspector, in 1992, he was in charge of “Operation Silo”, that targeted the activities of the IRA and other subversives.

Mr Cororan said he placed Mr O’Neill, then Garda O’Neill, into this special group of 20 gardaí that were involved in “searching subversives, properties and farms, and arresting and interrogating each property owner”.

He said Mr O’Neill had been “highly dedicated in the pursuance of IRA weapons and explosives”.

“We had major successes in discovering IRA bunkers, weapons, safe houses, training camps, and, as a result, the gardaí received really important information from our duty.” 

Mr Corcoran said he was promoted to the rank of superintendent on the back of the success of Operation Silo.

He said he later deployed Garda O’Neill to a “stolen car squad” of officers to respond to “a rampage of stolen cars over the city of Limerick, the majority of which were taken to Southill and burnt”.

Mr Corcoran described Mr O’Neill as one of the “most loyal and dedicated members” that he encountered in his 40 years of service in An Garda Síochána.

He said Mr O’Neill, when a detective inspector based at Henry Street Garda station, had “assisted Detective Superintendent Jim Browne” in rooting out the notorious “Dundon McCarthy criminal gang” from Limerick.

The gang was behind a number of gangland murders in Limerick in the early 2000s, including the killings of innocent rugby player Shane Geoghean in 2008 and businessman Roy Collins in 2009.

Answering Mr McEnroy, Mr Corcoran denied any suggestion there may have been anything “unusual or unprecedented or covert” about him contacting Eamon O’Neill, when Mr O’Neill was a superintendent, to look into a road traffic matter on behalf of a neighbour who was detected allegedly driving without insurance.

Mr Corcoran replied: “Not a bit judge. I knew Eamon from my time [in the force], and I had a phone number for him.” 

Mr Corcoran explained that the driver in question had been fully taxed, had a valid NCT and insured on a work van but that the insurance had not covered him in a car he was driving at the time he was stopped.

Discretion

Earlier, the court heard that another of the accused, Garda Colin Geary, of Ennis Garda Station, told investigating gardaí that he received texts and images of summonses from Supt O’Neill.

Garda Geary told gardaí in video interviews, that were shown in court, that he understood the messages to be instructions from Supt O’Neill to ask the prosecuting garda in the potential prosecution to see if they would use their discretion in relation to the summons and that the matter would be withdrawn or struck out.

“I did as instructed,” Garda Geary told investigators from the Garda National Bureau of Criminal Investigation.

The prosecution case, led by senior counsel Carl Hanahoe, is that Supt O’Neill’s alleged “interference or involvement” in potential prosecutions is at the heart of its case.

The five accused, Eamon O’Neill, Garda Colin Geary, Garda Tom McGlinchey, Sergeant Anne Marie Hassett, and Sergeant Michelle Leahy, deny a total of 39 counts between them of “engaging in conduct tending or intended to pervert eh course of justice”.

The trial continues.