The State has a responsibility to send “a clear message” that hate crime will not be tolerated, the head of the country’s human rights agency has said.

Senior gardaí told the Public Accounts Committee that the controversial redistribution and investment of funds at the Garda College was done with the aim of developing facilities at the Templemore training campus.

Garda chiefs were today accused of extensively bugging custody rooms, cars, apartments and phones for many years by a long-serving officer.

Garda chiefs have ordered the removal of all posters in stations advertising meetings organised to oppose the introduction of a reserve force, it was claimed tonight.

A suspended garda at the centre of the Morris Tribunal’s current investigations today said he believed Garda chiefs wanted to ’scapegoat’ him for corruption in the force in Co Donegal in the 1990s.