IRELAND
Sunday Independent
JIM CUSACK – PUBLISHED 06 APRIL 2014
MURDERED Sunday Independent journalist Veronica Guerin was told her phone conversations with a garda about paedophile priest Sean Fortune were bugged by the same recording system which is only now coming under scrutiny.
She also believed that gardai were tipping off members of the hierarchy about her efforts to expose the cover-up of Fortune’s rape and abuse of teenage boys.
The concerns that Veronica had stemmed from an apparent tip-off she received from a senior garda source in Dublin who told her that her conversations with a garda source in Wexford had been recorded. One of her sources for the story about the priest was local activist Billy Moroney, a former Labour Party member who, along with Fethard-on-Sea farmer Sean Cloney has since died, had built up files on Sean Fortune and other clerical abusers in the south east.
The whole abuse scandal stemmed from the work these men started and the publicity generated by Veronica and other journalists.
Mr Moroney said that as part of her investigations, Veronica had been in touch with a garda who was also concerned about Fortune, who was effectively being shielded by the church.
He told the Sunday Independent: “She (Veronica) rang me early on a Sunday morning, around 7.30pm, and told me to contact (the garda) and tell him their conversations had been bugged. She had been at a social function in Dublin on the Saturday night and some senior garda had told her about it. She was catching a flight to Manchester for a match in Old Trafford on the Sunday morning. She was adamant that I talk to (the garda) face to face.
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