THE MORRIS TRIBUNAL Report – Chapter 3 – The Making of the False Allegations
of any aspect of the letter of the 15th July 2000, if only to get a clear copy of it. Indeed, on the 30th of August 2000 when asked if he had anything further to offer the Garda investigation that might assist it, he said that he had not spoken to his source for a considerable time and that he was no longer the spokesman on Justice for Fine Gael; yet Deputy Higgins had received the second facsimile on the 15th of July 2000, which was clearly relevant to that inquiry in that he believed the information to be from the same source.328 3.231.
Deputy Higgins also believed that the letter of the 15th of July 2000 was from the same source because it was also addressed to him in rather familiar terms as “Dear Jim”, and was suggestive of previous correspondence with such phrases as “as you are aware”.329
3.232.
The Tribunal is satisfied that the contradiction in the second facsimile of the assessment of the character of Assistant Commissioner Carty contained in the first was so clear that it must have caused Deputy Higgins to question the reliability of the source of the documents whom he believed to be Mr. Togher. It was important that this information be given to the Minister. However, this would also have undermined the reliability of Deputy Higgins’ source in the eyes of the Minister and any investigator who was told of it. The Tribunal is satisfied that Mr. Higgins’ stated reasons for not passing on the document are to that extent somewhat disingenuous.
P. J. Togher and the Letter of the 15th of July 2000 3.233.
In an affidavit of the 10th of April 2003 submitted to the Tribunal Mr. Togher deposed to having a recollection that Frank McBrearty Senior showed him a letter in February or March 2000 that was addressed to Deputy Higgins. He informed him that it had come in the post and that he had already sent it to his lawyers. Mr. Togher scanned through the document and recalled thinking that it was strange that Mr. McBrearty Senior would facsimile this to Deputy Higgins when it was actually addressed to Mr. Higgins himself. He recalled that Frank McBrearty Senior asked him what he thought of the allegations contained in the letter but he could not recall precisely what his reply was at the time. He believed that it would have been similar to the reaction he had to a lot of documentation that had been received by Mr. Frank McBrearty Senior at that stage. He would have been concerned in a general sense that there might have been some truth in the allegations that there were difficulties within the Garda force in Donegal, but he had no information regarding the veracity of such allegations.330
3.234. 328 329 330
Mr. Togher told the Tribunal that he may have been mistaken in stating in this
Transcript, Day 573, page 164 and Tribunal Documents – Anonymous Allegations, page 270. Transcript, Day 573, page 3. Tribunal Documents – Anonymous Allegations, page 579.
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