Commission report on informer due

The Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission’s longest running and potentially most controversial public interest inquiry is completed…

The Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission’s longest running and potentially most controversial public interest inquiry is completed, with a report due for publication in coming weeks.

The case involves allegations that senior members of An Garda Síochána allowed a convicted drug dealer import drugs consignments valued at millions of euro in exchange for the names of those he was selling the drugs to.

The commission has also been investigating if the drug dealer and informer Kieran Boylan was officially registered as a Garda informer. Both the registering of informers and the logging of contact with them was a key reform introduced following the Morris tribunal which investigated Garda corruption in the Donegal division.

If Boylan was not registered as an informer and information he supplied to gardaí led to convictions, those convictions may be open to challenge. The Irish Times understands at least one convicted drug dealer currently in prison has been interviewed by the commission as part of the wider probe into Boylan and gardaí he was allegedly supplying information to.

Conor Lally

Conor Lally

Conor Lally is Security and Crime Editor of The Irish Times