A round-up of some of the other discoveries in this year's release of State papers.
Meath priests supported man convicted of IRA membership
A group of priests in Co Meath petitioned the government in October 1975 for the release of a local parishioner who was convicted for membership of the IRA.
The Kells parish priest, Rev James Holloway, and three other priests in the diocese wrote to the minister for local government, James Tully, saying they knew the man in question to be "an honest, just and charitable" person whose wife and children "miss him very much".
"Whatever about his political activities," they wrote, "it would be a great charity to restore this father to his family and we think his release would be something for which the people of Meath . . . would be very grateful."
Mr Tully replied that the government had intended to release a number of general prisoners in line with a plea from the Irish bishops to show "clemency" for the 1975 holy year. However, the minister said it would be wrong to release the man in question, or other IRA prisoners, "when matters are so serious in the country".
Mr Tully pointed out the man "need not have been convicted if he had, in fact, been prepared to make, in the court, even an unsworn statement to the effect that he wasn't a member of the IRA."
Suspended sentences 'menace the country' - Legion of Mary
The founder of the Legion of Mary Frank Duff wrote to the Department of Justice 40 years ago complaining about "leniency" in the sentencing of offenders by the courts.
In a letter dated March 28th, 1965, Mr Duff said a tendency among the judiciary to give suspended sentences for cases of assault was a "grave position" that "menaces the country".
He was appealing to the department to review the cases of a woman who received such a sentence after being convicted of breaking the arm of a 72-year-old resident in his Regina Coeli hostel in Dublin. The woman, who was also a resident of the hostel, was "marching around", advertising "her triumph over the law-courts."
Mr Duff stressed he was not chiefly concerned with her case but "what is happening as a routine in the courts".
"I would very much fear that the stage has been reached when the administration of the law lacks moral authority... The phrase on everybody's lips is that there is no longer any law."
Lobbying finally paid off as Garda got funding for UK motor show
The Garda spent 10 years lobbying the minister for justice for funding to send an officer to a UK motor show before finally having the money granted in 1968.
In a series of letters illustrating not only the financial constraints of the day, but the subservient role that the Garda Commissioner once had to play in relation to the department, various requests for the relatively minor expense of sending a garda to London Motor Show were turned down.
In October 1965, the commissioner wrote that attendance at the show was "essential" for providing the force with up-to-date information on the servicing and repair of its cars. A handwritten note on departmental paper said: "This is the first application we got since 1958 when a similar application was turned down."
The 1965 application was turned down, as was a similar application the following year. In 1968, the commissioner was finally granted funding for two gardaí to attend the show at a cost of £68 but only after promising not to make the application for funding an annual one.