Fiosrú taking no further action in Carlow gunman case

RTÉ News​

3 days ago

The Police Ombudsman, Fiosrú, has said it has decided to take no further action in relation to the case of Evan Fitzgerald, who fired shots in the air in a Co Carlow shopping centre before taking his own life.
Garda Commissioner Drew Harris said this week that he had referred "serious allegations" made about the garda handling of the case to the ombudsman.
Questions were raised in the Oireachtas about the way in which gardaí conducted their investigation into Mr Fitzgerald, who, prior to his death, was awaiting trial for possession of illegal weapons.
The weapons had been supplied to him by gardaí as part of an undercover operation after they became aware that the 22-year-old tried to buy guns on the dark web.
The weapon he used at the Carlow shopping centre was not one supplied to him by gardaí.
Independent Senator Michael McDowell and Labour TD Alan Kelly raised concerns about the techniques deployed by gardaí in the case.
In the Seanad, Senator McDowell said the case was one of "entrapment" and also claimed that "untruths" were told to a District Court judge when he was deciding whether to grant Mr Fitzgerald bail.
On RTÉ's This Week programme, Senator McDowell suggested it may have been "premature" of Fiosrú not to take any further action.
He said he did not know if the police ombudsman's office listened to the digital audio recording from the District Court.
He said if they have not, it was premature of them not to take further action in relation to what he described as "a serious issue".
Mr McDowell said he asked the Department of Justice to arrange for the matter to be fully investigated.
The senator said there were other options available to the gardaí, including confronting Mr Fitzgerald and his family about what he had done.
Commissioner Harris told the Oireachtas Public Accounts Committee this week that he took note of the comments made in the Seanad by Mr McDowell and referred them to Fiosrú for consideration.
Fiosrú told RTÉ's This Week programme that Mr Harris has no authority to ask the ombudsman to investigate any matter.
It added that after considering the two notifications of concern from An Garda Síochána in relation to this case, it decided that no further action was required by the police ombudsman.
At the Oireachtas Public Accounts Committee, Commissioner Harris described the garda investigation as "a very successful operation in which we made sure that a threat to the public did not arise from the circumstances we were dealing with".
"Subsequent events, tragic as they were on 1 June, were obviously very tragic, but they did not arise from our operation that we conducted," he said.