A senior garda who referred a whistleblower to the Garda Ombudsman over a domestic dispute complaint has told the Charleton Tribunal that she has no malice towards the officer.

"It's not about my feelings. It's about my professional reputation...The inference is made that we abused our power, and that is not the case."

This week, we reported that an investigation into a Garda whistleblower’s complaint has been stalled for two years because of a failure by the force to hand over documents to the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission. But the background to this episode stretches back much further than that, writes Michael Clifford.