The Minister for Justice, Mr McDowell, has received a copy of an investigation into allegations that senior Garda officers failed to pass an informer's warning to the RUC that could have prevented the Omagh bombing.
The report was ordered by Mr McDowell's predecessor, Mr John O'Donoghue, in May last year after allegations were made by a suspended Garda officer to the Northern Ireland Police Ombudsman, Ms Nuala O'Loan.
"The Minister will be making a statement to the Dáil about its contents shortly," a department spokesperson said.
Ms O'Loan passed on the allegation during a meeting with the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Cowen, in March 2002.
According to the allegation, a Garda Special Branch informer contacted a Dublin garda several days before the Real IRA set off a car bomb in Omagh in 1998.
Republican dissidents had asked the informer to steal a car, but they later contacted him to say that they had obtained a vehicle elsewhere, it was alleged. This information was allegedly not relayed to the RUC.
Dismissing the allegations at the time, the then Garda Commissioner, Mr Pat Byrne, said they were "unfounded" and "ludricrous" and came from a "mischievous" source.
The Garda sergeant connected to the allegations is currently suspended from duty, facing charges as part of a major inquiry into corruption claims in Co Donegal.
