Smithwick Tribunal

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The Smithwick Tribunal is a judicial inquiry being held in Dublin, Ireland, into the events surrounding the murders of Chief Superintendent Harry Breen and Superintendent Robert Buchanan of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC). The men were killed in a Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) ambush near the Irish border at Jonesborough between Louth and South Armagh on March 20 1989 as they returned from an informal meeting with senior Garda officers in Dundalk in an unmarked car ^[1].

There have been allegations that the IRA were tipped off about the route the men had planned to take by a member of the Irish Gardaí ^[2].

The tribunal will also consider whether there was a failure to act to prevent the two officers being killed. Smithwick stated that the inquiry would investigate whether there was collusion in the "widest sense of the word". He defined this further: "While it generally means the commission of an act, I am of the view that it should also be considered in terms of an omission or failure to act... I intend to examine whether anybody turned a blind eye to it, or pretended ignorance or unawareness of something one ought morally, legally or officially oppose ^[3]."

British Member of Parliament Jeffrey Donaldson used his parliamentary privilege in the House of Commons in 2000 to suggest that Det Sgt Owen Corrigan passed on information to the IRA about the meeting.

Corrigan's barrister denied the allegation at the tribunal: "That statement by Jeffrey Donaldson was a monstrous lie. It was false and my client wishes to establish the falsehood of it ^[4]."

The setting up of the Smithwick tribunal was prompted by the Canadian judge Peter Cory, who investigated the murder of the two RUC officers. In his report, published in December 2003, Judge Cory stated it could be said that the IRA did not need information from the Gardaí to carry out the ambush and that intelligence reports received in the aftermath had also pointed to this conclusion. However, Cory referred to two other intelligence reports mentioning a Garda leak and a statement from a British intelligence agent known as Kevin Fulton who claimed an IRA man told him that the IRA was told about the presence of the RUC officers in Dundalk police station by a member of the Gardaí ^[5].

In July 2006, Judge Smithwick has stated that he will complete his investigations before public hearings began ^[6]. The first public hearing will now not take place until the end of 2006 ^[7].