A former Garda sergeant signed false passport applications that later benefited members of the IRA because he was “a gobshite”, the Smithwick Tribunal heard this morning.

Former Garda sergeant Finbarr Hickey signed eight false passport application forms between January 1995 and April 1996, and he was later convicted and served a prison sentence after the activity came to light.

This morning Mr Hickey told the Smithwick Tribunal he derived no benefit, financial or otherwise, from his participation in the passports affair and that he signed the applications at the behest of former Dundalk colleague Leo Colton.

He said Mr Colton would arrive out to his station, which was then Hackballscross and where he was frequently alone in the station, and he would sign the forms.

He told the tribunal he was never aware the passport applications would be used by the IRA.

The tribunal heard one passport application benefited IRA volunteer Jimmy Fox, who was wanted by the gardaí and the RUC at the time and whose photograph had been circulated to Garda stations throughout the State. Fox had a conviction for armed robbery and was being sought in connection with a post office raid in Newry in which post office worker Frank Kerr was killed.

In relation to this passport application Mr Hickey said: “I should have known better but I was just a gobshite, and I signed it.”

The tribunal heard another passport application benefited Paul Hughes who had been extradited from Amsterdam, The Netherlands, to Germany to answer murder charges. Hughes was acquitted in Germany and had returned to Ireland where the fake passport assisted his leaving the country again, the tribunal was told.

A third passport was for the benefit of Damian Stanley, who, the tribunal was told, had been stopped while driving with bomb-making equipment in his car. Mr Stanley travelled to the United States, the tribunal heard.

In all, five of the eight false applications were traced to members of the IRA, and three of these assisted IRA members to leave the country.

Mr Hickey said he had not known the passports were destined for members of the IRA and would not have signed the application forms if he had thought so. He acknowledged his marriage had recently ended, that he was drinking heavily and had recently bought a new house, but he said he was not in financial difficulty.

He said the deposit for the house was made with the aid of a settlement he received from a car crash in which a child died, and he was earning considerable overtime payments from Border duties during a "foot and mouth" crisis.

Mr Hickey said he signed the applications because he believed Mr Colton “vouched for them”. He said there was a breach of procedures as the beneficiaries should have been brought to the station to verify their photographs and identities. He also acknowledged he had earlier told the tribunal he thought the passports were destined for people who wanted to go dating north of the Border.

However, Mary Laverty SC for the Tribunal said: “That is the worst excuse I’ve ever heard”.

Ms Laverty said colleagues of Mr Hickey’s had told the tribunal he was a “malleable personality”, was “decent” and “gullible”, and “strapped for cash”.

She put it to him that he was bright enough to be promoted to sergeant on his first attempt and his ability and intuition had been praised by some colleagues.

Mr Hickey, whose father was a chief superintendent and whose grandfather had joined the force in 1932, said “there might have been pull”. But he said the passports affair had ruined his life, while Mr Colton had left the force with his pension intact.

“I lost my job my house, my pension, everything over it. It ruined my life”, he said.

The Smithwick Tribunal was set up to inquire into whether gardaí or other employees of the State colluded with the IRA in the murders RUC officers Chief Supt Harry Breen and Supt Bob Buchanan in March 1989.

Mr Hickey has denied any collusion.