The fallout from the report of the O’Higgins commission report is not over.

The Dáil will today continue its debate on the report, and last night there was some trenchant criticism of the Garda Commissioner Nóirín O'Sullivan and some pertinent questions to which answers have not yet been supplied. The commissioner will appear before the Policing Authority today, where she will be questioned, and in a few weeks she will have to face an Oireachtas committee. So there are a few acts to go yet. But the moment of political danger for the Government, and for the commissioner, has passed.

The statement issued yesterday by O’Sullivan contained just about enough to allow the Government and most of the main Opposition parties to move on. None has any stomach for defenestrating another commissioner, or for facing up to deep problems in Garda culture – especially at a time when gang warfare is raging on the streets of Dublin.

But even though the political temperature on the subject will fall, it is unlikely to quell all the questions about the affair, about the commissioner’s approach to it or about the wider Garda culture.

The request of Ministers since last week has been that the commissioner would provide “clarity”. She did this on two principal issues.

She clarified that she did not instruct her lawyers to impugn Garda whistleblower Sgt Maurice McCabe’s integrity, or to accuse him of malice.

But we knew this already, because it was contained in the second batch of transcripts leaked – to the commissioner’s advantage – after the first leak.

They show the commissioner’s lawyer confirming he was mistaken in seeking to challenge McCabe’s “integrity”, as the first transcripts had attested. But he was clear his instructions were to challenge McCabe’s “motivation and credibility”.

This is implicitly confirmed by the commissioner’s statement: “Whatever its source, the net charge that is now being made is that the credibility and motivation of Sgt McCabe was challenged.”

“I cannot see how it would be in any way unreasonable, improper or avoidable to appropriately test and cross- examine the evidence of all persons giving evidence to the commission including Sgt McCabe.”

This seems to confirm McCabe’s motivation and credibility were indeed challenged by the commissioner’s counsel on her instructions, as the transcripts show. How it is possible to challenge someone’s credibility and motivation without challenging their integrity is not explained.

The second issue is the importance of a meeting between two senior gardaí – named in the Dáil last night as Noel Cunningham and Yvonne Martin – and McCabe in 2008 to discuss the complaints he was making at that stage. It has been reported that the gardaí's account of this meeting suggested McCabe admitted malice against a senior Garda officer as a motivation for some of his complaints.

But when McCabe produced a recording of the meeting for the commission it contradicted the account of the gardaí. There have been Dáil questions as to whether the discovery of the recording was related to the apparent change in O’Sullivan’s counsel’s approach.

Minister for Justice Frances Fitzgerald has also been asked if she has discussed this aspect of the controversy with the commissioner and whether it might lead to disciplinary action with the Garda.

The commissioner has asked Fitzgerald to refer the matter to the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission for investigation. So the clarity offered here is: there may be a serious issue here and someone independent should investigate it.

The obvious question likely to be heard in the Dáil is why the commissioner is acting on this only now. The image of a force happier to let such matters rest until they are forced to address them by outside pressures is hardly contradicted by the approach of the commissioner.

It’s clear that the behaviour of ordinary gardaí can sometimes be delinquent. That is to be expected. It is also clear that when that happens, their colleagues cover up for them. That is also to be expected.

However, the special problem the force has is that all the internal disciplinary procedures and management processes, which should be equipped to get around this culture, instead are part of it. For all the talk about culture change, that much seems not to have changed.