Acting Garda Commissioner Dónall Ó Cualáin has said there "is no evidence to suggest" that anybody at management level in An Garda Síochána asked gardaí to falsify records with regards to breath tests.
Mr O'Cualáin and senior managers appeared before an Oireachtas Committee answering questions focusing on false breath tests and wrongful convictions.
Recording failures, potential inflation and estimation and cutbacks during the recession have been the factors stated that led to false breath test data.
At the Oireachtas Justice Committee this morning, Fine Gael TD Colm Brophy put it to Mr Ó Cualáin that a real problem for the force is that members, through the Garda Representative Association, are blaming garda management for the falsification of breath test numbers.
He asked how he proposed the "people you may be disciplining may be the people who believe the people disciplining them are the ones responsible" for false test numbers.
Mr Ó Cualáin said garda management has taken action in relation to the GRA comments and asked Assistant Commissioner Michael O'Sullivan to go back, seek names of people, and go to them and find out if management were putting pressure on front line members.
He said: "I would be very surprised that any manager in charge of a district or division would not be asking and directing that all of the people under their control would fully engage with that process in relation to the enforcement of the Road Traffic Acts.
"However, if we move to the taking of breath samples where the falsfication may have occurred. There is no evidence to suggest that that anybody at management were asking their members to falsify records."
Assistant Commissioner Michael O'Sullivan suggested that cutbacks to the force during the recession are a factor that may have led to false breath test data.
He said: "Poor management structure was a part of it. There were divisions without chief superintendents during that period due to the cutbacks, divisions without divisional traffic inspectors, regions without regional traffic superintendents, traffic bureau itself had no dedicated assistant commissioner from 2008 to 2017.
"The Traffic Bureau had seven chief superintendents that stepped in and out."
Mr Ó Cualáin told the committee an inquiry into false breath tests is under way, and gardaí have now adopted a new approach to roads policing, which will strengthen governance.
He also said An Garda Síochána is awaiting the outcome of an independent investigation by the Policing Authority.
Mr Ó Cualáin said that in relation to wrongful convictions, 99% of the work has been completed.
The committee was told that the repayment of fines in cases of wrongful convictions for penalty points offences has so far cost around €1 million.
Almost 12,000 people have been written to and gardaí are working with the Courts Service to ensure all are appealed, he said.
Sixty-seven test cases have already been appealed and a further 3,800 are to be heard in the courts in December.
Addressing the reports by Assistant Commissioner O'Sullivan into issues surrounding the Fixed Charge Processing System and breath test checkpoints, Mr Ó Cualáin acknowledged the reports "found major failings in how we handled both issues over a significant period of time".
He said: "The reports identified unacceptable failures in our systems, processes, internal oversight, supervision and management."
