The Attorney General is to decide whether proceedings should be taken against a man arrested yesterday by gardai investigating the leaking of official documents to newspapers.
The man was released from Lucan Garda station at 8.30 p.m. yesterday, after being detained for 12 hours following his arrest at his home. The Garda said a file would be sent to the "relevant authority".
Proceedings under the Official Secrets Act, 1963, can be taken only with the consent of the Attorney General.
A former adviser to a junior minister in the rainbow government, the man had access to a range of confidential government papers, including documents originating at the Department of Foreign Affairs.
The man's house was searched by gardai yesterday, and detectives are also understood to have searched his place of work.
If he is prosecuted, the case will prove a significant political embarrassment for the Fine Gael leader, Mr John Bruton. He has vigorously pursued the issues raised by the leaked memoranda while defending the integrity of those who worked in the rainbow administration.
The questioning of the man is believed to have centred on a series of documents sent to the Sunday Independent newspaper. These covered Anglo-Irish politics, including minutes of a 1994 Anglo-Irish Inter-Governmental Conference.
However, they did not include the controversial memoranda on the FF/PD presidential candidate, Prof Mary McAleese, gathered by the Department of Foreign Affairs.
The documents sent to the Sunday Independent, but not published by the newspaper, are considered to have been from a different source from the McAleese memoranda. The newspaper said it received them from anonymous sources claiming to be "Fianna Fail dissidents".
Unlike the McAleese memoranda, they were torn from original collections of documents rather than freshly photocopied.
There was a cautious response from politicians in Leinster House last night to the latest development in the investigation.
The Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, declined to comment, but a Government spokesman said: "We are happy with the progress the gardai are making."
A Fine Gael spokesman said: "The Fine Gael party unreservedly condemns the leaking of confidential government documents by any person. "Any person found guilty of leaking confidential government documents would have no place in Fine Gael. Fine Gael would not wish to make any other comment which might prejudice this investigation."
A Labour spokesman said: "If somebody is found to be responsible for leaking documents, they should be prosecuted." A Democratic Left spokesman said that the party had already said it hoped the Garda investigation would succeed.
