"Pure fiction" and "simply not true" were among the emphatic denials from gardai Kevin Lennon and Noel McMahon last week to the allegations of perjury, stitch-ups and bogus arms finds.

Supt Lennon said several C77 confidential Garda bulletins recorded their republican informant Adrienne McGlinchey as being reliable. But all of her claims about their alleged misbehaviour and corruption were not true, he said.

Lennon said he was never "plastered drunk" in McGlinchey's flat, nor was he ever in her flat or drunk in Garda stations or Garda cars. He recalled seeing McGlinchey drunk in Detective McMahon's house, but she was not `fired' into a Garda car nor had he used obscene language about her. Lennon said he had never planted fertiliser in her flat in Buncrana, nor was he aware of drugs being planted in the Point Inn.

Noel McMahon confirmed they had travelled with their informant to Rossnowlagh, scene of the disputed arms find, but denied they went there to plant explosives. He said the purpose of the trip was for McGlinchey to point out places where explosives were stored. The arms were identified and the gardai removed them the next day.

Mr Justice Adrian Hardiman, presiding, questioned McMahon about why they did not report the find that night. He noted that McMahon, Lennon and McGlinchey had stopped on the way back at a chip shop located just 100 yards away from Donegal Garda Station, the local district garda headquarters.

Hardiman also asked why they did not organise a stakeout to catch the people who had placed the explosives in Rossnowlagh.

McMahon said he was surprised they did not alert the local garda station, but it was not his call because he was the junior officer. He maintained it would have placed a strain on resources to organise a surveillance operation.

McMahon said he had not told their informant, McGlinchey, about the August 1992 raid on the Point Inn nightclub.

Mr Justice Hardiman noted that a garda interview recorded McMahon as saying McGlinchey was supposed to go to the Point Inn but did not go. This was an interview by gardai with McMahon in 1999.

McMahon claimed in court that McGlinchey's proposal to visit the Point Inn was made after his raid on the premises.

The judge also questioned Supt Lennon about why one of the four suspects arrested during the raid was not apparently prosecuted.

Hardiman noted that this suspected drug dealer was recorded by the arresting officer as having no drugs in his possession. It was not until the following afternoon that two marked £10 notes were found in the man's possessions -- notes that were allegedly used by the gardai as part of the undercover operation.

Hardiman noted that the suspected drug dealer's statement, included in the book of evidence in the Frank Shortt trial, said he had taken two £10 notes from an undercover garda officer and then walked over to a second drug dealer and handed over the money in return for the drugs.

The judge said this was not consistent with the two marked £10 notes then turning up in the possessions of the first drug dealer. Hardiman said it was also odd that there was no record of the first drug dealer being asked about the marked notes when he was interrogated.

Supt Lennon said it was his own idea to used the marked £10 notes. If there was no record of the drug dealer being asked about them, then it appeared that no questions of that nature were put to him, he said.

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