System could tape 300 lines every day

The state-of-the-art Garda recording system had the capability to record more than 300 phone lines all day, every day, over a six-year period.

The digital system was set up in 2008 and recorded incoming and outgoing calls on designated lines at 23 divisional and national headquarters until November 2013.

At that stage, the former Garda commissioner, Martin Callinan, directed that only 999 calls could be recorded after that.