The Disclosures Tribunal has concluded hearing most of the evidence on its examination of the treatment of Sgt Maurice McCabe at the O'Higgins Commission.
However, the sergeant will be questioned about the effect of the hearings on him when he gives his evidence at the beginning of the next module.
Tribunal chairman Mr Justice Peter Charleton outlined several questions he wanted addressed by lawyers when they make submissions on this section of the inquiry.
He asked whether any unjustified grounds had been inappropriately relied upon by Nóirín O'Sullivan.
Mr Justice Charleton also asked what evidence there was, that the letter of 18 May 2015 submitted on behalf of the former garda commissioner, was a deliberate mistake or an uncorrected mistake that was allowed to stay due to recklessness.
Another question was whether there was any evidence of a dark truth of going after Sgt McCabe at the commission, emanating from the apex of the organisation and ascribed to Ms O'Sullivan.
He also asked whether the minister and the department had behaved lawfully in leaving the O'Higgins legal strategy to the garda commissioner.
Mr Justice Charleton said he did not see any evidence of an aggressive legal strategy. He also said he did not believe that the O'Higgins Commission had inappropriately handled matters.
Finally, he asked whether there was any appropriate basis on which to ask the tribunal to investigate the current term of reference or whether it was entirely based on leaks and conjecture.
Earlier, Deputy Garda Commissioner John Twomey said he did not have any involvement in the garda legal strategy at the O'Higgins Commission and he said he had no knowledge of the approach.
Asked about his input at meetings between the minister for justice and the garda commissioner in May 2016, he said his contribution was about gangland killings in Dublin and industrial relations issues.
The former secretary general of the Department of Justice said he had no recollection of receiving an internal department email about a row over the legal strategy at the O'Higgins Commission.
Noel Waters appeared before the tribunal in early January but was recalled today.
Mr Waters was asked about emails that gave rise to a political controversy surrounding then Minister for Justice Frances Fitzgerald last year, which were not disclosed to the tribunal initially.
He said he had no recollection of having received the email of the 15 May 2015, which referenced a row over the garda legal strategy at the O'Higgins Commission.
He said the email in question was unearthed when department officials were preparing answers to parliamentary questions after the controversy emerged late last year.
Counsel for the tribunal Diarmaid McGuinness asked Mr Waters if when the tribunal was set up in 2017, he had recalled meetings he had with Ms O'Sullivan that involved a discussion of her legal strategy at the commission.
Mr Waters said he had not recalled the meetings at the time.
Mr Waters was asked why he did not tell the tribunal about two meetings between Ms Fitzgerald and then Ms O'Sullivan on the 16 and 19 May 2016 in the aftermath of the O'Higgins Commission.
He said when he made his original statement to the tribunal he had no knowledge or recollection of those meetings.
Former administrative officer denies 'going after' McCabe remarks
The former garda chief administrative officer acknowledged that he was concerned comments attributed to him would imply he was directing the approach to Sergeant McCabe at the commission.
Cyril Dunne told the Disclosures Tribunal again that he absolutely denied making a remark about "going after" Sgt McCabe at the commission.
The force’s Head of HR, John Barrett, previously told the tribunal that he heard Mr Dunne make the comment following a meeting in May 2015.
The tribunal is examining whether or not former garda commissioner Nóirín O'Sullivan inappropriately relied on unjustified grounds to discredit Sgt McCabe at the O'Higgins Commission.
Today counsel for Mr Barrett, John Rogers, put it to Mr Dunne that his statement to the tribunal betrayed a concern not to be seen to be intimately involved in the approach taken towards Sgt McCabe at the commission.
Mr Dunne said that was absolutely right.
He outlined that he was concerned about both the suggestion that garda management were "going after" Sgt McCabe and that Mr Dunne himself was somehow involved.
He said he was also concerned about making sure the truth would come out.
Mr Rogers said Mr Dunne's statement also showed a determination to distance himself from virtually anything to do with Sgt McCabe, even though he had substantial discussions with senior colleagues about Sgt McCabe in 2015.
Mr Dunne said these discussions were not in relation to the O'Higgins Commission. He said his understanding was that the tribunal's focus was on the O'Higgins Commission.
Mr Dunne said he did not relate meetings in 2015 about Sgt McCabe's workplace situation to the commission of investigation as they were totally different.
Earlier, Mr Dunne told the tribunal he had not been conscious of what was going on at the commission in May 2015, as hearings were in private
Mr Dunne gave evidence in relation to a meeting on 25 February 2015 about the support and engagement with Sgt McCabe by senior garda management.
He said he believed he had been brought into the discussion by Ms O'Sullivan to bring an alternative perspective.
He said he had a concern that there was groupthink going on in suggestions that there needed to be a different position found for Sgt McCabe at the time.
Mr Dunne said he challenged that because he believed the issues would not simply be resolved by finding somewhere different for him to work.
He said his sense at the time was that Sgt McCabe must be under a serious amount of stress, and he said he was not sure finding the right position for him would make it any less stressful.
Under cross-examination by his own counsel, Mr Dunne repeated that he never made the remark attributed to him.
He said he was not in a position to do so and was not involved in the O'Higgins Commission or a legal strategy for that inquiry.
He said he had no engagement, no involvement and no basis on which to make the comment.
Counsel for Mr Dunne and the garda commisioner, Conor Dignam, said that when Mr Barrett first made his allegation, he did not specify the date and he had said there were other "attendees" at the meeting.
Mr Dignam said Mr Barrett was now placing the date as 13 May 2015, although there was only one other attendee - Ms O'Sullivan.
Mr Dignam also said if there was a suggestion that a meeting could have been held between Mr Barrett, Mr Dunne and Ms O'Sullivan on 12 May, that emails from that time also indicted it could have been a phone conversation between Mr Barrett and Ms O'Sullivan rather than a meeting.
Meanwhile, a senior garda has disputed the timing of when he was told by Mr Barrett of the alleged comment made by Mr Dunne.
Chief Superintendent Tony McLoughlin was questioned about when Mr Barrett may have relayed the alleged comment to him.
Chief Supt McLoughlin said the first time he can recall Mr Barrett telling him about the remark was in November or December 2017.
Mr Barrett told the tribunal he told Chief Supt McLoughlin about the comment sometime in the months after May 2015.
Chief Supt McLoughlin said that he probably would have remembered such a discussion with Mr Barrett given the seriousness of the discussion. He said he had no memory and no note of it.
He said that Mr Barrett raised it with him last December and asked him if he remembered being told about it. Chief Supt McLoughlin said he told Mr Barrett he did not.
Chief Supt McLoughlin said Mr Barrett raised it with him again on 26 January.
Counsel for the tribunal, Patrick Marrinan, said the impression given by Mr Barrett was that Chief Supt McLoughlin could support his contention.
Chief Supt McLoughlin said he could not support that because he had no recollection of the conversation.
Additional reporting by Sandra Hurley.
