Key points
- Breen and Buchanan were killed by the IRA on 20 March 1989 after leaving Dundalk Garda station.
- In 2000 Donaldson named a Garda officer in the Commons; the officer denied it and no court has found against him.
- The Smithwick Tribunal (2013) was satisfied there was collusion, without naming a 'smoking gun'.
On 20 March 1989, five weeks after Pat Finucane was killed in Belfast, two of the most senior RUC officers in the border region were shot dead in an IRA ambush in south Armagh. Chief Superintendent Harry Breen and Superintendent Bob Buchanan were driving home from a meeting at Dundalk Garda station, just across the border, when their car was stopped on the Edenappa Road near Jonesborough.
The question that followed them for decades was whether someone inside the Garda station had told the IRA they were coming.
The allegation in the Commons
In April 2000 Jeffrey Donaldson, then an Ulster Unionist MP, used parliamentary privilege in the House of Commons to suggest that a named Garda detective sergeant had passed information to the IRA. Donaldson later joined the DUP, and became its leader in 2021, which is why the claim resurfaced in coverage at that time.
The officer he named always denied it. At the later tribunal his barrister described the allegation as a "monstrous lie". Because the claim was made under privilege it could not be the subject of a defamation action, and because no court has found against the officer, we do not repeat his name here.
The Smithwick Tribunal
The killings were one of six cases examined by the Canadian judge Peter Cory after the 2001 Weston Park talks. Cory recommended an inquiry, and the Irish government set up a tribunal of inquiry chaired by Judge Peter Smithwick. Public hearings began in June 2011.
Smithwick reported on 3 December 2013. He said he was "satisfied there was collusion in the murders", while acknowledging there was no "smoking gun". His view was that the evidence pointed to someone inside Dundalk Garda station assisting the IRA.
The report caused a political shock in Dublin. The then Minister for Justice, Alan Shatter, apologised without reservation for the failings it identified. The Garda Commissioner called the idea of collusion "horrifying", and the Taoiseach, Enda Kenny, described the report as shocking.
Disputes about the evidence
The tribunal's reliance on some witnesses has been criticised. A former agent who gave evidence admitted under cross-examination that he had no direct evidence linking the named sergeant to the murders. Commentators who regard the tribunal's conclusions as overstated point to this; others, including the DUP at the time, said the report vindicated long-standing concerns.
Why it connects to the Finucane case
Both cases turned on the same question: did people employed by the state help a paramilitary group kill someone? Both were on Cory's list of six, and in both cases the families waited more than a decade for an official answer. The difference is in the outcome. Ireland held a public tribunal with powers to compel witnesses; the UK commissioned a document-based review for Finucane in 2011 and only announced a statutory inquiry in 2024.