A retired Garda superintendent wrote to the solicitor for one of the people wrongly arrested during investigations following the death of cattle dealer Richie Barron and told him there was no basis for a letter complaining of ill treatment.
Former superintendent John Fitzgerald said he received several letters of complaint from the firm of VP McMullen following the arrests, which began on December 4th, 1996.
"Those complaints would be noted, they would be answered, and they would be put to the incident room and they would be looked at at a later stage," he said.
"I didn't anticipate them or think them at that stage to be letters of complaint for the Garda Complaints Board. If it were now I'd have sent them straight away to the Garda Complaints Board.
"I can say that in one of the cases I made inquiry from the public officer in question, which I take it was Garda Leonard . . . and he said that there was absolutely nothing to it. I can't remember which letter it was, but I did that.
"I wrote back to Mr McMullen's office, stating to the effect that I carried out inquiries and that I saw no basis for his letter."
Mr Fitzgerald said he felt the solicitor was "making a marker for the future."
Former superintendent John McGinley said it was "absolutely ridiculous" to suggest that "five or six members would go in to Mr [Mark] McConnell before he was released with five or six pages of a statement or whatever it was in the hope that he would confess".
Mr McConnell has said that the statement, a purported confession from his cousin Frank McBrearty jnr, was put to him by the witness, then an inspector, shortly before his release on December 4th, 1996. The tribunal has found that both men, and others arrested as accessory to murder, were innocent of any involvement in Mr Barron's death. He was killed in a hit-and-run vehicle collision.
Sgt Georgina Lohan said she remembered being present during Mr McConnell's arrest, but had little recollection of the events that morning. She was told earlier that morning to go to Mr McConnell's home, but had no specific instructions.
Garda Hugh Dillon said he made a notation on a chart listing the gardaí who interviewed Mr McConnell during his detention stating "no notes were taken during these interviews", but he could not say if his notation meant no notes had been taken or if they were missing.
The tribunal resumes on Monday, when it will hear the evidence of Frank McBrearty snr.