Detective Garda Noel McMahon has told the Morris Tribunal that Adrienne McGlinchey told him a swimming pool at her family home in Letterkenny was converted into an IRA bunker.
He told the Tribunal she said a senior IRA man put a false roof on the pool and a rose bed was planted on top of it.
A lot of fertiliser for the IRA's home made explosives was supposed to have been stored in the bunker, he said, and Ms McGlinchy used to joke that the roses were coming on great.
Detective McMahon said he did not believe this story, but he still got a planned garda search of the property called off.
Inspector Kevin Lennon had proposed the search after two explosive finds close to the McGinchey home but Detective McMahon asked the Superintendent involved not to let the search go ahead because if diggers went into the pool it would cause a major rift between McGlinchey and her mother, and in turn a rift between him and his informant and a drying up of any further information.
The Garda earlier said there was a cottage industry in Donegal involving people crushing fertiliser for use in explosives for the IRA.
He said Adrienne McGlinchey was crushing small amounts of fertiliser in a standard size coffee grinder, but he did not believe that the amounts found all came from this operation.
He said the main crusher was a tractor with an attachment for crushing corn or barley.
Ms McGlinchey was grinding small amounts, he said, and if they had several other people, some using tractors and others using bigger coffee grinders, it all added up.
It was put to him that it was ludicrous to suggest that the IRA were depending on Adrienne McGlinchey and her coffee grinder to grind for their operations.
Detective McMahon said the answer he got from Ms McGlinchey was that the main crushing area was in the Quigleys Point area on a farm and with that information, she said, the gardaí should be able to find it.
