An attempt by convicted murderer Catherine Nevin to get access to garda files, which she claims are relevant to her application to have her conviction declared a miscarriage of justice, has resumed at the Court of Criminal Appeal.
She was found guilty ten years ago of the murder of her husband Tom at their pub, Jack White's Inn in Brittas Bay.
She was also convicted of soliciting three men, Gerry Heapes, William McClean and John Jones, to kill her husband in 1989 and 1990.
Mrs Nevin is serving a life sentence on the murder charge and a concurrent seven years on the soliciting charges. Her appeal against conviction was dismissed in 2003.
Mrs Nevin is seeking a range of documents, including garda security files on key prosecution witnesses at her trial.
She claims the documents could undermine their credibility.
Catherine Nevin also wants an order requiring the DPP to answer whether William McClean, Gerry Heapes and John Jones were ever State informers and whether Mr McClean, with whom Nevin denied having an affair, had paramilitary connections.
Counsel for the State Tom O Connell told the three judge appeal court that Mrs Nevin must establish a new fact or newly discovered fact and not an opinion or a suspicion.
The existence of a garda file on William McClean, which listed his criminal associates, was not enough to do this, he said.
Mr O Connell said Garda statements in this case confirmed that Mr McClean had no paramilitary involvement.
He said a garda file suggested he was connected with other criminals on both sides of the border, some of whom may have had paramilitary connections, but that Mr McClean himself had none.
Mr McClean was cross examined on this issue at the time of the trial and denied any paramilitary involvement.
The existence of a garda document called a 'suspect antecedent form' on Mr McClean and the people with whom he was associated did not progress the matter further.
He said in any case the jury was only obliged to find Mrs Nevin guilty of soliciting one of the three men before it could convict her of murder.
In fact, she had been convicted on all three soliciting charges so even if the document was relevant to Mr McClean's credibility, it was not relevant to the other men and the conviction was safe.
However counsel for Mrs Nevin, Hugh Hartnett, said if one prosecution witness was tainted there was a possibility that another would be tainted.
He said there was evidence at the trial that Mr McClean was an associate of Gerry Heapes.
Mr Hartnett said it was clear that all the matters submitted by them were newly established facts because all of them came to light after the trial and the appeal against conviction.
He said the prosecution's case depended entirely on the allegations of three prior solicitations by Mrs Nevin.
'The witnesses were interconnected and if one was shown to be lacking credibility then it could have caused the prosecution's case to tumble,' he said.
Mrs Nevin also wants depositions in the Report of the Independent Commission of inquiry into the Dublin Monaghan bombings (the Barron report), which they claim identified Mr McClean as a person who stayed in the Four Courts Hotel between 10 to 16 May 1974, who made telephone calls and sent telegrams to Belfast and London.
