A senior garda has denied he gave an assurance that an alleged informer would not be charged or prosecuted about her role in an arms find on the Donegal/Derry border in early 1994.
Chief Supt Denis Fitzpatrick faced cross-examination by Mr Brian Murphy, for Det Garda Noel McMahon, who Ms Adrienne McGlinchey alleges prepared explosives for subsequent use in bogus Garda arms finds along with Supt Kevin Lennon.
The two officers have both denied those claims and Ms McGlinchey has insisted she never had an informer's role.
Mr Murphy put it to the chief supt, who was then responsible in Co Donegal for cross-Border liaison with the RUC, that he gave Det Garda McMahon an assurance that Ms McGlinchey would not be arrested for transporting explosives to the Border at Bridgend in January 1994, which the Garda planned to intercept.
"That is not true," said Chief Supt Fitzpatrick.
Det Garda McMahon's evidence would be that Ms McGlinchey had phoned him to tell him of the planned move earlier that evening, but wanted an assurance she would not be charged as a result, Mr Murphy told the tribunal.
Chief Supt Fitzpatrick told the tribunal that Ms Sheenagh McMahon, the estranged wife of Det Garda McMahon, told him in 1999 that "Noel was worried" about the 1995 conviction of Donegal nightclub owner Mr Frank Shortt on charges of allowing drugs to be sold on his premises, the Point Inn.
The conviction was quashed in November 2000, and the Court of Criminal Appeal declared a miscarriage of justice in the case in mid-2002.
"She did say to me that Noel was worried about that conviction," Chief Supt Fitzpatrick said.
However, Mr Murphy for Det Garda McMahon said that Ms McMahon had told another garda, Sgt Des Walsh, that her husband should have got a Detective of the Year award for his work on the Shortt case. She was upset because her husband had not got the credit, he said, and not because there was anything wrong with the conviction.
Ms McMahon gave a commitment that she would make a statement outlining her allegations, Chief Supt Fitzpatrick told Ms Sandra Freyne, for Ms Sheenagh McMahon. He said no pressure was exerted on Ms McMahon to make a statement.
Chief Supt Fitzpatrick also refused to withdraw an allegation that a suspended superintendent "misled" the Garda about arms finds during the early 1990s.
He was challenged by Supt Kevin Lennon, who is representing himself, to withdraw the allegation, which he made before the tribunal in December, that Supt Lennon had misled his colleagues.