Council requests garda tapes for inquest

WICKLOW County Council's legal team requested that recordings of phone calls made at Bray Garda Station during the investigation into the deaths of firemen Brian Murray and Mark O'Shaughnessy be made available to them.

However, gardai say it is unlikely that any tapes exist.

The request for the tapes was made by senior counsel Luán Ó Braonáin at Dublin Coroner's Court on Monday, prior to the resumption of the inquest tomorrow ( Thursday). The inquest into the deaths of both men has already heard 11 days of evidence.

Brian Murray (46) and Mark O'Shaughnessy (25) died as they fought a blaze at a disused ink factory at Adelaide Villas in Bray, Co Wicklow, on September 26, 2007. Last October, Wicklow County Council, the local fire authority, was fined € 355,000 after pleading guilty to health and safety violations in relation to the incident.

On Monday, while discussing how the inquest would proceed, Mr. Ó Braonáin said that it had since emerged that telephone calls in and out of certain garda divisional headquarters had been recorded and he claimed Bray was such a station.

However, Detective Garda Maurice Hickey told the court that Bray was not made a divisional headquarters until 2008.