Retired detective sergeant Tom Fox has told the Smithwick Tribunal that a former MI5 agent within the IRA was not 'a spacer'.
Smithwick Tribunal - Tom Fox retracted comments about Peter Keeley
A retired detective sergeant has clarified comments he made to the Smithwick Tribunal about a man who worked as an agent for MI5 within the IRA.
Tom Fox last week referred to a man he believed to be Peter Keeley, who also uses the name of Kevin Fulton.
Mr Fox had described him as a 'spacer' and was not a man who could be trusted. Information that he passed on was always exaggerated and that was the view of the detectives in Dundalk.
He had also said that if it was the person he thought it was, then he also used the name McCann.
Today a photograph of Mr Keeley was shown to Mr Fox when he was recalled by the tribunal.
The witness confirmed that this was not the person he had been talking about last week and that his comments did not refer to Mr Keeley.
Mr Keeley has already given a statement to the tribunal in which he claims that he was an agent in the IRA and that the Detective Sergeant Owen Corrigan was passing information to the paramilitaries. Mr Corrigan has always denied the claim.
The tribunal is investigating allegations that Mr Corrigan or two other named gardaí, retired sergeant Leo Colton or former garda Finbarr Hickey, were an IRA mole inside Dundalk Garda Station.
It has been alleged that one of them passed information to the IRA about a meeting in the station in March 1989 involving two senior RUC officers who were ambushed and killed shortly afterwards.
All three former gardaí deny the allegations.
Neil Rafferty, counsel for Mr Keeley, said his client operated inside the IRA for MI5 and that the name Kevin Fulton was given to him for newspaper reports when he spoke about the Omagh bombing and Mr Corrigan.
In reply to a question from Mr Rafferty, Mr Fox said he was aware that a man called 'Mooch' Blair was a well known subversive in Dundalk, but he did not know that Mr Keeley was a driver for this man.
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