No senior officer at the siege in Abbeylara sought the advice of John Carthy's GP, even though he had been present since the start of the armed stand-off with gardaí on April 19th, 2000.
Dr Patrick Cullen had been called to the scene by the Carthy family within minutes of the first shots being fired by Mr Carthy, but senior gardaí did not ask for his professional advice in dealing with the manic depressive 27- year-old, the Barr tribunal heard.
The chairman of the tribunal, Mr Justice Barr, intervened dur- ing the evidence of Supt Martin Maguire, acting district officer at the time of the siege, to ask why no one had asked Dr Cullen how best to deal with his patient, Mr Carthy.
"Did it cross your mind, Superintendent, to talk to Dr Cullen? Why did no senior see fit to talk to him?"
Supt Maguire said he was aware that Dr Cullen had given information to Garda Colin White, however he admitted to not speaking to Garda White himself.
"I can only assume we got all the information Dr Cullen had," he said.
When asked by Mr Justice Barr if he was suggesting that Dr Cullen was withholding information, Supt Maguire assured the chair he was not.
The tribunal heard that Dr Cullen had told Garda White that Mr Carthy had animosity towards the gardaí, but this information had not emerged until several hours later into the siege.
"Did this not cause concern whether officers learned other things they failed to pass on, when they withheld something so fundamental as Dr Cullen's warning that this was a dangerous man with strong anti-police views?" the chairman asked.
Supt Maguire replied that he had learned of Mr Carthy's problems with the gardaí from local members at a later stage.
Mr Justice Barr added that junior officers had not seemed interested in interviewing Dr Cullen in any depth.
Earlier Supt Maguire, who had been in charge of the unarmed uniformed gardaí during the stand-off, told the tribunal that uniformed gardaí were to be in sight of Mr Carthy if he left the house so that he wouldn't "panic".
Supt Maguire said it was felt that if Mr Carthy could see that uniformed officers were present, it would have a calming effect on him in the event of his emerging from his house.
When asked by counsel for the tribunal, Mr Raymond Comyn, if this was putting unarmed men at risk, Supt Maguire said while there was always a degree of risk, he had instructed his men not to do anything that would put their lives in danger.
It had been the view of the Emergency Response Unit, Mr Comyn said, that the presence of unarmed gardaí in the roadway when Mr Carthy left his property had been a factor in the decision to shoot.
The unarmed gardaí had been at "very little risk", Supt Maguire said.
"The uniformed gardaí were aware that if anything happened, they were to take cover immediately. Supt Shelly [the scene commander\] was aware of where the unarmed personnel were."
