A retired superintendent and four serving gardaí have been found not guilty of perverting the course of justice, following an eight-week trial at Limerick Circuit Court.
The five accused denied 39 charges of unlawfully interfering in road traffic prosecutions, on dates between October 2016 and September 2019.
The jury of eight men and four women deliberated for over six hours before returning its verdict.
The case against former superintendent Eamon O'Neill, Garda Tom McGlinchey, Garda Colm Geary, Sergeant Michelle Leahy and Sergeant Anne-Marie Hassett was heard over eight weeks.
It was the State's case that Mr O’Neill, while a serving superintendent, received enquiries from motorists and other gardaí about pending or potential road traffic prosecutions, and that he passed these queries onto other gardaí, including some of his co-accused, who communicated amongst themselves and with other gardaí in attempting to have the cases struck out or withdrawn from court.
The trial heard the alleged traffic offences included speeding, holding a mobile phone while driving, having no insurance and not wearing a seatbelt.
After deliberating for a total of six hours and seven minutes, the jury returned not guilty verdicts on every one of the 39 counts they had to consider.
The courtroom erupted with applause and cheering as the final not guilty verdict was read into the record.
Speaking afterwards, Mr O'Neill said the issue centred on him and his actions, and not those of his four co-accused.
"I hope the people involved in this think long and hard about the decisions they made through all of this," he said.
Describing his time in court over the last two months, he said he had "never felt pressure like it in my whole life" but that he was now relieved and looking forward to getting on with his life.
He was also critical of An Garda Síochána, saying: "It's an organisation that you give everything you can for, but if they decide that you fall, you fall heavy and they come after you and they don't offer you any back up... they offer you nothing."
Ex-Supt Eamon O'Neill says 'never felt pressure like this’ during case
Mr O'Neill said he had learned from the experience and added that the force needed to examine where it was going.
"I don't know what's going on in that force, but I can tell you there was a decision made a couple of years back that the force was corrupt, and a decision was made to weed out the bad eggs. I was a bad egg in their eyes," he said, adding "shame on them".
The Garda Representative Association said the verdicts followed seven "challenging, frustrating and turbulent years" for its members who were subject to court proceedings.
The GRA said the anguish and trauma caused by the case was a "gross injustice" and expressed hope that the gardaí in question could now return to their roles in the communities they served.
GRA president Mark O'Meara said the verdicts underpinned a feeling of sadness and disappointment felt by his members at the manner in which they had been treated since the investigation began in 2019.
He said they had been "languishing on suspension… while their careers and livelihoods have been decimated".
Mr O'Meara said this highlighted concerns the GRA had about the detrimental use of suspension as a disciplinary tool.
Mr O'Neill's solicitor, Dan O'Gorman, said the impact of the proceedings against his client had been devastating.
He said the State had come after Mr O'Neill, and his co-accused, with all its power, but a jury of their peers had acquitted them.
