An extraordinary High Court battle is looming between two arms of the State following the appearance at the planning tribunal yesterday of the head of the Criminal Assets Bureau.
The refusal by the CAB to provide the tribunal with copies of the documentation it seized from Mr George Redmond puts both bodies firmly on a collision course.
The decision was taken following consultation with the Director of Public Prosecutions.
Both CAB and the tribunal are conducting separate but overlapping investigation into the affairs of Mr Redmond, the former assistant Dublin city and county manager. Now both bodies are locked into a "turf war" at taxpayers' expense.
The matter is to be thrashed out in a special sitting next Monday, but with neither side prepared to back down, it may take a High Court decision to settle things.
The tribunal had been investigating Mr Redmond for months when he was arrested by CAB officers in sensational circumstances last February 18th. At the time, he was returning from the Isle of Man carrying £300,000 in cash and cheques.
It was revealed yesterday that Mr Redmond had been served that very day with an order demanding that he supply details of all his bank accounts, investment and financial transactions since 1970.
Was this the spur for his seemingly panicked journey to empty his accounts in the Isle of Man?
Now, however, the tribunal finds itself frustrated in its investigations, as CAB officers seized this documentation when they searched Mr Redmond's house on the night of his arrest.
Tribunal lawyers yesterday read extensive correspondence which shows the repeated but unsuccessful efforts Mr Justice Flood has made to get copies of this material from CAB.
From the witness-box in Dublin Castle, the head of the CAB, Det Chief Supt Fachtna Murphy, yesterday repeated his refusal to provide the documentation. Furnishing the information would "almost inevitably" prejudice the investigations by CAB and the conduct of any trial that might follow, he said.
The two investigations are very different. CAB, a joint agency of the Garda Siochana and the Revenue Commissioners, has unrivalled powers to seize assets where it suspects criminal activity. It may also be mindful of the propensity of information provided to the tribunal to leak.
Although Det Chief Supt Murphy declined to say yesterday when CAB started investigating Mr Redmond, it is believed this may have been only days before he was arrested. Acting on a tipoff, CAB officers put Mr Redmond under surveillance and trailed him to the Isle of Man and back again before making the arrest. The £300,000 he was carrying has been seized.
In contrast, the tribunal has no powers of seizure of assets. It can't bring charges against Mr Redmond or anyone else and it has to circulate information it receives to all interested parties.
Its investigations into Mr Redmond are only parts of a wider inquiry into planning corruption.
But it was pressure from the tribunal which put in train the series of events which led to Mr Redmond's arrest.
The correspondence revealed yesterday confirms that he was co-operating with the tribunal, and even ordered his banks in the Isle of Man to provide it with his account details.
However, when talks on a deal over immunity collapsed, this co-operation ended. And then the CAB swooped.
Det Chief Supt Murphy appeared in the witness-box yesterday on foot of an order made by Mr Justice Flood "with deep regret and in the public interest".
Facing the chairman and occasionally reading from a prepared text, the witness noted drily that the correspondence between CAB and the tribunal which had just been read out had been marked "private and confidential".
He claimed privilege over the documentation, but declined to state the basis on which he was claiming this privilege or when CAB had started its investigations.
"That's absolutely ridiculous," Mr Justice Flood remarked.
Because the tribunal believes it is in the public interest that it get copies of Mr Redmond's investigations, counsel for the public interest, Mr James O'Reilly SC, has been drawn into the row.
Mr Reilly has attended on only two occasions previously in Dublin Castle.
In a separate development involving the Gardai, Mr Justice Flood later ruled that lawyers for the Garda Siochana will not be allowed to cross-examine Mr James Gogarty.
He ruled that since Mr Gogarty had "clearly and unequivocally" retracted any allegation of wrongdoing against the Gardai, there were no grounds for allowing his cross-examination by Ms Nuala Butler, for the Garda Siochana.
His ruling will undoubtedly be met with relief by Mr Gogarty, whose only remaining hostile cross-examination will be a brief re-examination by lawyers for the Murphy group next week.
Mr Gogarty has progressively retreated from the allegations he originally made to TDs and journalists about the Gardai's failure to prosecute Mr Joseph Murphy jnr for intimidation.
In his affidavit, he alleged that "improper influence" had been brought to bear on the i Garda in the matter, but in evidence he withdrew this and spoke only of an "error of judgment" he believed had been made.
As a result, the chairman ruled that a cross-examination by counsel for the Garda i would not advance the work of the tribunal. "It would be a wholly fruitless exercise and a misuse in my opinion of the tribunal's time."
Mr Gogarty returns to the witness box on Tuesday.