MORRIS TRIBUNAL: A senior Garda officer said suspended garda Supt Kevin Lennon was wrong to allow alleged informer Ms Adrienne McGlinchey to transport a hoax package across the Border.
The envelope of bullets was allegedly moved to Strabane as part of a bomb hoax on September 11th, 1993.
Chief Supt Denis Fitzpatrick, then Border superintendent in Donegal, said he learned of the hoax from then Insp (now Supt) Lennon, but that it could not be stopped. "It was a mistake. Ms McGlinchey shouldn't have been allowed to go across the Border with the package."
Supt Lennon told him it was an IRA job, and that was one of the reasons he allowed it. "One of the reasons was this would give her credibility in the IRA if she was allowed to do it."
He said he did not remember meeting Supt John P. O'Connor on September 7th, 1993, after Det Garda Noel Jones found an envelope containing a shotgun and .22 rifle ammunition and written notes outside the flat of Ms McGlinchey.
Supt O'Connor in a statement said this meeting was to restate the "hands-off policy" over Ms McGlinchey. "I've no recollection of a discussion with Supt O'Connor," Chief Supt Fitzpatrick said.
He first knew of a find of alleged explosives at Ardchicken, Co Donegal, when he got a call from Supt Michael Duffy in Ballyshannon on the morning of the search. He was told the location of the find. "I ascertained that Kevin Lennon was the person who gave him the information."
He later learned that the information had come from Ms McGlinchey to then Insp Lennon.