A journalist has told the Morris tribunal that he saw a document making anonymous allegations against two senior Garda officers before it was brought to the attention of Opposition TDs.
The TDs, Fine Gael's Jim Higgins and Labour's Brendan Howlin, received the information on June 25th, 2000, the same day a feature by journalist John Mooney appeared in the Sunday Times, outlining the case of the McBrearty family in Co Donegal.
Mooney said he had checked in the past days and confirmed he saw the document before he wrote this article, which did not cover the anonymous allegations. "I can't be sure, but it was probably a week or two weeks before," he said.
Mooney said he thought the document he saw had a Garda stamp and made reference to the crime and security branch. It contained similar allegations to those outlined to the two TDs.
"Crime and security jumped out at me because of the nature of the intelligence work that department is involved in," he said. What struck him were the allegations detailed in the document, not its appearance.
"It was almost as if someone had left a document lying around on a photocopier, and somebody leaked it. It certainly did purport to be an internal Garda memo that had been leaked for altruistic reasons," he said.
Mooney told tribunal barrister Anthony Barr SC that because he was bound by confidentiality he could not say if he had put the allegations in the anonymous document to Assistant Commissioner Kevin Carty after he received them.
Mr Justice Frederick Morris said he saw the problem Mooney had. "I have uncontested evidence from the assistant commissioner, and Mooney says he may have spoken to a number of people. I don't need to go further than that."
The journalist said that by November 2001, he had come to the conclusion that the document was a forgery. He did not know who the author of the anonymous allegations was.
He said that National Union of Journalist (NUJ) ethics guidelines would prohibit him from identifying the source of his information. But following consultation with an NUJ representative and his legal counsel, he said that PJ Togher, a retired garda, was not the source of his information about the document.
The tribunal is trying to establish the source of anonymous allegations that Det Sgt White planted evidence at the behest of assistant commissioners Kevin Carty and Tony Hickey.
Assistant commissioner (now Deputy Commissioner) Fachtna Murphy investigated the allegations on behalf of the commissioner, and found that there was no evidence to support the allegations.
"We found nothing that would contradict the conclusions in the Murphy report," tribunal investigator Pat Cummins told the chairman.
Mr Cummins, a retired assistant commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, reviewed the investigation carried out by Mr Murphy, as well as original documentation from other sources, including the Carty inquiry.
The tribunal has adjourned until Friday, when it will hear an application from Mr White's legal team, and will resume again after the Easter break to hear evidence from journalist Frank Connolly.