GARDA COMMISSIONER DREW Harris has said that comments made in the Seanad in relation to a firearms case involving the Carlow shopping centre gunman have been referred to the Garda Ombudsman, Fiosrú. 

Harris made the revelation today in the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) under questioning from Fine Gael TD James Geoghegan. 

Evan Fitzgerald died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound after firing a number of shots at the Fairgreen Shopping Centre in Carlow on 1 June. At the time he was on bail for serious firearms offences.

The 22-year-old from Portrushen Upper near Kiltegan, Co Wicklow appeared in court last year after he was arrested by gardaí and charged with offences associated with firearms he allegedly sought on the dark web.

Following his death in Carlow, the Garda Commissioner revealed at an Oireachtas committee that Fitzgerald had previously received guns as part of a controlled delivery by gardaí.

Harris said these guns were then taken back by gardaí and that the gun Fitzgerald had taken to the Fairgreen Shopping Centre was stolen during a burglary.

A ‘controlled delivery’ is a method used by undercover police officers across the world in which a suspect who is believed to be attempting to acquire illicit items is given them by a police officer.

Commenting on the case in the Seanad this week, senator and former Justice Minister Michael McDowell said: “I just want to put on the record that this was a case of entrapment.”

Claims

McDowell was not named by Geoghegan at the PAC today but the Fine Gael TD recited the former minister’s claim about entrapment to the Garda Commissioner.

McDowell had also claimed in the Seanad in comments made on Tuesday of this week that a garda gave “untrue and misleading” evidence to the district court during Fitzgerald’s bail hearing in the firearms case, in which he was charged alongside two other young men.

Speaking under Seanad privilege McDowell said that “apparently Mr Fitzgerald sought firearms on the dark web” and that “Interpol or some other international agency” had alerted the Garda to the inquiry and that gardaí had later arranged the delivery of firearms, which were disabled and taken from their own stock of seized weapons. 

McDowell added: “When the matter came before the District Court, the Garda initially opposed bail.”

He said that when eventually bail, on certain conditions, was granted, the District Court judge, Desmond Zaidan, “who had been told on sworn evidence that the allegation was that [Fitzgerald] purchased these firearms on the dark net … [he] very naturally later asked, ‘When you say the dark web, do you have any idea who was selling them on the dark web?’”

“A member of An Garda Síochána, in sworn evidence, told him, ‘That is an ongoing investigation. At this stage I wouldn’t want to’, and the judge said, ‘Compromise the trial’, and he said, ‘That is an ongoing investigation on the dark web.’”

McDowell told the Seanad: “It is a shocking thing, I have to say, that untrue and misleading evidence would be given to a judge of the Irish District Court in these circumstances, leaving him in the dark that these were decommissioned weapons supplied in a controlled delivery by members of An Garda Síochána [...] I believe that is a shocking thing which needs investigation.”

Commissioner

Asked today by Geoghegan to explain the difference between entrapment and a controlled delivery, the Garda Commissioner responded: 

“May I say, that I took note of the comments that were made in the Seanad and I referred those to the Ombudsman for their consideration.

“I haven’t had a response back as yet as to what they will do,” Harris said. He said he had referred the comments on under particular legislation and noted to the TD that the allegations were serious ones. 

Asked by Geoghegan if the details of a controlled delivery would usually be revealed during a bail application hearing, Deputy Garda Commissioner Justin Kelly said no. 

“In my experience, the details of a controlled delivery would often come out if there is a full hearing, if there is a contested trial, all that detail would come out.”

It would be unusual for it to come out in a bail hearing, he said.

Kelly added: “A bail application is usually in relation to the risk that the person will not show at their next appearance if they are granted bail … It would be unusual to go into a lot of granular detail around that for bail.”

Evan Fitzgerald. Family photo Family photo

Both the Commissioner and Deputy Commissioner defended the use of controlled deliveries by gardaí, arguing that they are standard practice in international policing when it comes to drugs, firearms and other materials. 

“To give a quite straightforward example, if someone is importing drugs into the country, the drugs come into the country, they’ve started that themselves. They’ve started that whole plan themselves. If we intercept them as they come into the country and if we continue the delivery, as in if An Garda Síochána delivers the goods to somebody, that’s not entrapment, that’s a controlled delivery,” Kelly said.

“However, if we were to encourage someone or supply the drugs to them originally, and they were to import the drugs into the country, that’s entrapment. That’s obviously something we don’t do.”

He added: “There’s clear case law in relation to controlled deliveries … it’s a well-proven tactic.”

The firearms case was also raised in the Dáil today by Labour TD Alan Kelly, who reiterated many of McDowell’s claims and criticised the response to them. 

Slamming what he described as ” briefings” that went out from security sources the Tipperary TD said the message was being given “that people like myself and Senator McDowell … shouldn’t be speaking up on this issue, and that such commentary was manna from heaven for organised crime groups”.

He said that message was “insulting to both chambers” and that he and McDowell, as public representatives, were “entitled to ask legitimate questions”.