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Smithwick hears about bugging investigation

A retired Garda inspector has described investigations into the alleged interception of cross-border telephone calls between the RUC and Gardaí by the IRA, leading to the murder of two senior RUC officers.

Retired inspector Chris Kelly was asked to carry out an investigation in 2009 following an article that appeared in the Phoenix magazine, claiming that the IRA had a bug the organisation used to intercept phone calls between Dundalk garda station and the RUC over secure lines.

Mr Kelly said that an intercept like the one the magazine described was possible, but it would have left evidence afterwards, and no evidence had been found.

“You would have to have someone who had an inside knowledge and a technical expertise to carry out the observation as described,” he said.

And he said that cutting through airtight telecom wires, a necessary part of the operations, would set off an alarm in the exchange.

Mr Kelly said there were “easier ways” to intercept a telephone line, away from the telephone exchange. “It would eventually be detected, but it would be more easily detected at the exchange,” he said.

During his inquiry, Mr Kelly interviewed journalists who had written stories for the Cork Examiner and Dundalk Argus, but was unable to meet with the editor of the Phoenix.

The Cork Examiner article appeared two days after the deaths of RUC officers Chief Superintendent Harry Breen and Superintendent Bob Buchanan in 1989, and suggested that because the IRA had access to telephone calls between RUC and Garda officers, there was no need for a Garda mole in Dundalk.

The Smithwick tribunal was set up to examine the allegations that a leak from a Garda mole to the IRA led to the deaths of the two men in an IRA ambush as they returned from a visit to Dundalk.

Journalist Jim McDowell, who wrote the Examiner article, was interviewed by Mr Kelly, and described his source as “a very good source and a very reliable source.

The Examiner article described a device attached to a telephone pole, not in a telephone exchange as described in the Phoenix.

Garda records showed there were “private wire” lines between Dundalk and the RUC stations in Bessbrook and Newry, but not between Dundalk and Armagh.

However, RUC records showed there was a private line to Armagh.

The magazine article said the monitoring device was discovered by a now-deceased telephone engineer, Gerry Finnegan, but there was no record of such a report, Mr Kelly found.

But he did speak to Mr William Prendergast, an An Post investigator who had “a recollection of an investigation which took place similar to that detailed in the Phoenix.”

Later, two retired Telecom Eireann/Eircom engineers said that they were unaware of any evidence of phone tapping in the Ramparts exchange in Dundalk.

Mr John McGuoine said the exchange was kept locked at all times, and Mr Frank McEvoy said that because the exchange carried all calls in the North-east, and routed all calls between Dublin in Belfast, security was high at the site, and all staff were vetted.