No Garda protection has been provided for the alleged IRA informer at the centre of allegations that Donegal gardaí planted bogus explosives a decade ago, the Morris tribunal has heard.
Chief Supt Martin Callinan, head of the Security and Intelligence section (formerly C3) of Crime and Security division, said he wanted to make it "crystal clear" that Crime and Security was not saying publicly that Ms Adrienne McGlinchey was or was not an informant.
However, he said that as far as he was aware, neither Crime and Security nor any other Garda division had made any arrangements to ensure Ms McGlinchey's safety.
Chief Supt Callinan was speaking after Ms McGlinchey's barrister, Mr Paul Murray, had asked whether, given the dangers involved in informing on the IRA, gardaí had taken steps to ensure her safety.
Asked about the evidence of Chief Supt Denis Fitzpatrick, former head of the Donegal division, that Ms McGlinchey was not an informer, Chief Supt Callinan said: "I think it would be inappropriate of me to make a comment. It's not really something I can comment on."
The tribunal is looking into claims that Supt Kevin Lennon and Det Garda Noel McMahon prepared explosives, together Ms McGlinchey, for use in bogus Garda arms finds.
Both gardaí deny these allegations, and Ms McGlinchey denies she was ever an informer or a member of the IRA.
Chief Supt Callinan said it was unlikely the IRA would use coffee-grinders to prepare homemade explosive (HME), as the tribunal has heard Ms McGlinchey had done.
"You would certainly want some something far more substantial to make any impact or inroad in relation to compiling any sizeable portion of HME," he said.
"The IRA have over the years used many ways and means of mixing it, from cement-mixers to threshing machines and other improvised methodologies."
A barrister for the tribunal, Mr Anthony Barr, asked Chief Supt Callinan if a lack of forensic examination of a find made in Rossnowlagh in 1994 was unusual, since evidence such as fingerprints could be used to prove a charge of membership of an illegal organisation.
"That would not be consistent with best practice in An Garda Síochána," Chief Supt Callinan said.
"One would have expected that all of the necessary standard operating procedures and investigative procedures would have been followed.
"That would have been the expectation of An Garda Síochána.
"Unless there were exceptional circumstances, and I cannot think of any, I don't believe that is a practice that should be encouraged or was in existence."
After hearing evidence in closed session yesterday morning, the tribunal resumed hearings in public shortly after midday.
Donegal was "a particularly busy centre nationally", Chief Supt Callinan said.
A total of 70 out of 228 finds in the four-year period leading up to the first IRA ceasefire in 1994 - almost one-third of all finds in the Republic - had been made in Donegal.
"The Provisional IRA had a very active unit, engaged in all types of subversive activity," he told the tribunal.