The Garda Commissioner, Mr Pat Byrne, has set up an inquiry into the activities of two of the gardaí involved in the Colm Murphy investigation, and asked that the outcome be sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions.
The evidence of one of the teams of investigators, Det Garda Liam Donnelly and Det Garda John Fahy, was ruled as inadmissible during the trial when it was proved that a page of the notes of one interview had been falsified. When the gardaí involved discovered this, they removed it, but a forensic test showed the existence of the note of false evidence.
During the trial Mr Justice Barr, presiding over the three-judge court, described Garda Donnelly and Garda Fahy as "discredited witnesses", and their conduct as "outrageous", saying they had been involved in "persistent lying on oath" under cross-examination. Garda Donnelly had been guilty of "patent falsification", he said. This "taints the prosecution and has consequences which extend beyond the interview notes".
However, in their verdict yesterday the judges concluded that this had not tainted the activities of other interrogators. "If the wrongdoing had been that of a senior officer, of which his juniors may have been aware, there would be a substantial case to be made that his wrongdoing . . . may have percolated down," Mr Justice Barr said. But in the absence of any evidence connecting other officers with Garda Donnelly's wrongdoing, "there is nothing to establish that it might have percolated upwards or outwards".
Commissioner Byrne yesterday ordered a full investigation into "issues related to the case and the activities of certain gardaí".
This followed a comment from Assistant Commissioner Mr Kevin Carty after the conviction of Colm Murphy, that the Commissioner took the criticisms like those made by the court very seriously and would take action to address them.
Speaking to journalists outside the court, Mr Carty paid tribute to the investigating teams from the Garda and the PSNI, and to the prosecution legal team. He said this was a significant milestone in the attempt to bring the perpetrators of the Omagh bombing to justice, and stressed that the investigation was still "very much alive".
In a statement yesterday on the Donnelly and Fahy aspect of the case, the Irish Council for Civil Liberties called on the Minister for Justice to publish immediately a Bill to establish a Garda Inspectorate and to expedite the introduction of video-recording facilities in all police stations.