The Kerry Babies On Tuesday, 24 April, 1984, a young detective garda, Joe Shelly, arrived in Caherciveen to help local gardai with their investigation into the mysterious discovery of a baby's body on a beach near the town 10 days earlier.

He was later joined by other members of the garda murder squad from garda headquarters in the Phoenix Park to help with the investigation into the circumstances of what became known as the Kerry Babies case. From Abbeydorney, six miles north of Tralee, Joanne Hayes gave birth to a baby boy on 13 April, 1984. The following day, the stabbed body of another baby was discovered on a beach at Caherciveen.

After garda questioning, Joanne and members of her family signed confessions admitting their role in the murder and disposal of the baby found on the beach in Caherciveen.

Joanne was charged with the murder of her baby but the case took a twist when her own baby's body was found on the family farm while she was remanded in Limerick prison.

The murder squad still wanted to pursue the case against the Hayes family but the DPP insisted that it should be dropped. Following the failure of two internal garda inquiries, the government decided to hold a public tribunal of inquiry . . . headed by Judge Kevin Lynch . . . into the controversy surrounding the arrest and charging of the Hayes family.

After sitting for 77 days, the tribunal criticised the gardai for their handling of the case but ultimately exonerated them from any wrongdoing, particularly from extracting confessions from the Hayes family through any form of abuse or intimidation.

The tribunal branded Joanne Hayes and her family as liars and rejected allegations made by Joanne Hayes's brother that he had been assaulted by Shelly.

He and three other gardai subsequently reached an out-of-court settlement with Hayes and a publishing company over a book she had written about her ordeal.

Despite their exoneration by the tribunal, Shelly and three colleagues were transferred to desk duties by the garda commissioner in October 1985, in what was widely seen as demotion. No explanation was given by the commissioner for his actions.

The death of Richie Barron Eleven years after the Kerry Babies controversy, Shelly, now a detective superintendent, arrived in Letterkenny to investigate the death of cattle dealer Richie Barron on 14 October, 1996. Shelly was one of the officers who managed the controversial investigation into the McBrearty family in Co Donegal.

In the subsequent tribunal into events in Donegal, Justice Frederick Morris found that Frank McBrearty Jnr and his cousin Mark McConnell were framed for the murder that never was of Richie Barron.

Morris heavily criticised the leadership of the garda investigation into the death of Richie Barron in his second report released last year.

The report said it was "prejudiced, tendentious and utterly negligent in the highest degree. Chief Superintendent Denis Fitzpatrick, Superintendent John Fitzgerald, Detective Superintendent Joseph Shelly and Detective Inspector John McGinley all share in various degrees the burden of fault for this matter."

In early 1998 the 54-year-old father of three was transferred to Athlone before being moved to nearby Mullingar in 2000.

Shelly's role in the death of John Carthy at Abbeylara in Co Longford was scrutinised in great detail by retired judge Robert Barr. Barr's report, published on Thursday, looked, amongst other things, at how Shelly dealt with the incident as one of the scene commanders.

Barr's probe was considerably more straightforward than the Morris tribunal's many tentacles. All the incidents relevant to the Barr tribunal occurred in relation to one subject; John Carthy, and the principal incident . . .

Carthy's armed occupation of his family home . . . took place over just two days.

Having spent his early career connected to the murder squad and finding himself in Donegal during a hectic spell of corruption and subterfuge among a small section of the force in the 1990s, Shelly could have reasonably expected the midlands posting to be more sedate and uncontroversial. He couldn't have foreseen the events of 19/20 April 2000.

Over the course of the two days during which Carthy refused to leave his family home or to give up his shotgun, Shelly intermittently shared command of the scene with Superintendent Michael Doyle. Shelly was on duty at the time Carthy was shot.

Barr noted that Shelly's initial concern was to detain Carthy in the house "pending the outcome of negotiations with him."

But neither Shelly nor Byrne had experience of dealing with a mentally ill man acting in a dangerous manner. Barr criticised Shelly's "negligence" in failing to have interviewed Carthy's doctor, Dr Patrick Cullen, a GP based in nearby Coole, as a matter of urgency.

Importantly, as the siege escalated, the garda Emergency Response Unit (ERU) replaced local armed officers at the scene but Barr said these local gardai appear to have been left "largely to their own devices."

Just before 6pm on the second day of the stand-off, Carthy walked out of the house with a loaded shotgun in his hand, which caught gardai by surprise. The presence of local officers nearby when Carthy left the property "created a potential disaster situation which ought to have been adverted to by the scene commanders, " Barr said.

"The greatest garda mistake at Abbeylara was not preparing for an uncontrolled exit by Mr Carthy from his house. . . Shelly, the scene commander, was one of those exposed to potential danger and had to run for cover, " Barr stated in his report.

He described Shelly as one of three gardai who contributed to Carthy's death.

Last year John Carthy's sister, Marie, heavily criticised the garda commissioner for accepting the retirement of Shelly. She said it was an "absolute disgrace" that Shelly could retire on full pension on 31 July even though the Barr tribunal had yet to report.