A document alleging serious malpractice by leading insurance company Quinn Direct was a forgery, a Garda investigation has concluded.
Last April, the Sunday Tribunepublished a document purporting to be an internal memo from a Quinn Direct manager, which claimed the company made payments to claimants' solicitors in return for quick settlements and that it recruited serving gardaí to investigate and settle claims.
The company vehemently denied the allegations and began libel proceedings against the newspaper. Garda Commissioner Noel Conroy ordered an inquiry, which was headed by Assistant Commissioner Eddie Rock.
The Irish Timesunderstands that this Garda investigation has found that the memo was not composed by anyone in the company and that it was fabricated by an outside person and passed to the Sunday Tribune.
Gardaí believe the document was given to the newspaper by a person who used to work for a number of insurance companies. They interviewed this person but he has denied any involvement.
Quinn Direct said last night it was pleased the investigation had vindicated it and called on the newspaper to correct its story.
The inquiry has found no evidence so far that any members of the force were carrying out paid work for insurance companies, it is also understood. However, it is not complete and may take some time.
In the case of specific accidents in which an insurance company was alleged to have obtained confidential Garda information, investigators interviewed two gardaí who were able to give legitimate explanations why they accessed information about the accidents from the force's Pulse computer.
However, there are plans to review the auditing procedures for Pulse to ensure that information is accessed for legitimate purposes only.
While the newspaper had alleged that insurance companies accessed confidential information about people involved in accidents, the investigation found that much of this information was freely available to people on application to the force.
A Quinn Direct spokesman said it was disappointed with the approach of the Sunday Tribune.
"They refused to show the memo to us in advance of publishing even though we explained to them that we were confident that no such document ever existed.
"Having seen the published memo in the newspaper, we immediately identified it as a forgery and explained this to the Sunday Tribuneand yet they have refused after four months to acknowledge this in the face of unambiguous evidence.
"We can understand that mistakes can happen in any context, but we are very concerned that this was not recognised and corrected at the earliest opportunity by the paper. We would now call on them again to do so."
Sunday Tribuneeditor Nóirín Hegarty was unavailable for comment yesterday