When the Minister for Justice announced he had asked Mr Justice Murphy of the Supreme Court to take over the O Buachalla inquiry, he made it clear that this was because serious allegations had been made which went far beyond a possible irregularity in the issuing of a pub licence.
When allegations surrounding the issuing of the licence for Jack White's Inn in the sole name of Catherine Nevin first became public, the president of the District Court, Judge Peter Smith wick, was asked to conduct an inquiry.
However, within days of him embarking on the inquiry, Mr O'Donoghue said he was putting it on the formal statutory footing of an inquiry under the 1946 Act, where the Chief Justice can be asked to appoint a judge of a superior court to carry out an inquiry into the health or conduct of a district judge.
In a 50-minute speech to the Dail, Mr O'Donoghue said: "My own assessment is that the complexities involved will not end with the matter of legality, propriety or otherwise of issues relating to the liquor licence. In recent times, another matter of very serious import has been brought into the public domain in the course of various public comments that have been made.
"There have been suggestions to the effect that two members of the Garda Siochana were treated in an unfair manner in Judge O Buachalla's court in the past. This relates to allegations made some years ago against the two gardai in question, which were in the name of Catherine Nevin."
A file on this matter had been sent to his predecessor, he said. These allegations added "a new and important dimension to the inquiry". It was clear that they were a crucial factor in his decision to change the nature of the inquiry.
There were, and remain, three issues to be decided on the question of the licence. Should Judge O Buachalla have heard an application involving a close friend? Was he right to hear the application in his chambers? Was he right in law in ordering the issuing of the licence?
These could have been examined fairly simply by interviewing all involved.
The inquiry may well decide he was wrong on these issues, but judges are allowed to make wrong decisions, if they do so in good faith. Their decisions can be appealed to a higher court or, if they are of an administrative nature, they can be judicially reviewed.
Even if there were wider concerns about the implications of a decision, this could be sorted out in relative informality by the president of the court in question, which was the route first embarked upon.
What made the O Buachalla affair much more serious was the allegation that when they appeared in his court he treated the gardai concerned unfairly. If true, this meant he exhibited a pattern of bias or discrimination against certain witnesses. That had serious implications for the integrity of his conduct as a judge.
However, the inquiry heard yesterday that the two gardai were now withdrawing the allegations and were "satisfied" there was no basis for making complaints against the judge.
The question now must be - if they had no foundation, how did these allegations come to be made in the first place, leading to an inquiry of this nature.