A garda with no experience of, or training in, negotiations has told the Barr tribunal that he was called on to negotiate with Mr John Carthy, the armed man at the centre of the Abbeylara siege.
Sgt Tom Dooley, who had no prior involvement in an armed stand-off of any kind, was one of the first people to attempt negotiations with Mr Carthy, the tribunal has heard.
The tribunal is investigating the events surrounding the shooting dead of Mr Carthy by armed gardaí at Abbeylara in April 2000 after he emerged from his house carrying a loaded shotgun.
Sgt Dooley said that some three hours after the start of the siege he received a call from the Emergency Response Unit negotiator, Det Sgt Michael Jackson, who was on his way to the scene.
Det Sgt Jackson instructed him that negotiations should be opened as soon as possible. Sgt Dooley told the tribunal that he took this to mean that he should speak to Mr Carthy. The scene commander, Supt Joseph Shelly, had begun negotiations some minutes previously.
Sgt Dooley said that he had never been involved in an armed stand-off and had no experience of negotiations, but he had "adhered strictly" to Det Sgt Jackson's instructions.
"I told him my name was Tom. I told him nobody had been hurt and that we were there to help."
Mr Carthy responded by firing two shots, he said.
An earlier Garda witness told the tribunal that Mr Carthy had discharged a shot when asked if he wished to speak to Sgt Dooley. Garda Michael Faughnan said he heard Supt Shelly tell Mr Carthy that Sgt Dooley was there to talk to him. "When that was said, a shot was discharged from the house."
Mr Carthy remained hostile after Det Sgt Jackson took over negotiations, Garda Faughnan said. "He made no verbal response apart from abusive language."
