On September 30th, 1996, a meeting of several senior Garda officers took place in the Serious Crime Office of the Garda Central Detective Unit in Harcourt Square, Dublin.
Attending were Assistant Garda Commissioner Tony Hickey; Chief Supt Ted McCarthy of the National Drugs Unit; Chief Supt Fachtna Murphy; Supt Felix McKenna; Insp William McGee of the Garda Bureau of Fraud Investigations; Insp Gerry O'Connell from the Lucan investigation team into the murder of Veronica Guerin; Sgt John Matlin; and Det Insp Terry McGinn.
In April 1996, Det Insp McGinn had set up an operation called Operation Pineapple. She had 12 Garda officers working with her in Operation Pineapple and reported on a weekly basis to Chief Supt McCarthy.
The meeting was later joined by Barry Galvin, the Cork solicitor who is now head of the Criminal Assets Bureau. In September 1996 the Criminal Assets Bureau was still in embryo; it had not been established formally.
The meeting was called to discuss whether Det Insp McGinn should apply to the courts for a search warrant under Section 64 of the Criminal Justice Act 1994, to enable her and her colleagues to search the premises of Michael Hanahoe and Co, solicitors.
Hanahoe solicitors had acted for Mr John Gilligan and his wife, Geraldine. John Gilligan is a suspected major drug dealer and is the prime suspect for the murder of Veronica Guerin.
The gardai believed Mr and Mrs Gilligan had substantial amounts of money and that they had used this to buy property.
They believed Hanahoe and Co had dealt with the conveyancing of some of this property and with the obtaining and discharge of mortgages in connection with these properties.
The meeting in Harcourt Square on September 30th, 1996, decided that Det Insp McGinn should apply for a Section 64 search warrant rather than a Section 63 order, which would simply have required the solicitors to supply specific documentation.
After that meeting, Insp McGinn prepared the documents necessary for the application to the court for a search warrant under Section 64 of the 1994 Act.
She took advice from Mr Galvin on the wording of these documents and she had them typed in her presence.
At noon three days later (October 3rd, 1996), Insp McGinn called a briefing meeting of the gardai involved with her in Operation Pineapple.
She told them for the first time of the decision to apply for a warrant to search the offices of Hanahoe solicitors, and she told them it was intended the offices would be searched that afternoon, after she had obtained the court order.
The gardai present were to be the search party.
She told one other Garda officer, whom she met in a corridor, what was happening.
She then went to Kilmainham District Court at 1.40 p.m. where she obtained the search warrant from District Justice Gillian Hussey, following a hearing in chambers (i.e. out of public view).
Just before she went into Judge Hussey's chambers she was telephoned by a member of the Garda search party who had gone to the area outside the Hanahoe offices in Parliament Street, Dublin.
This officer told her that there were two media people outside the offices. Insp McGinn left Kilmainham court at 2.35 p.m. and shortly afterwards the search of the Hanahoe offices started.
Eight people knew on September 30th of the decision to seek a warrant to search the Hanahoe offices, but these did not know the time or the date on which the search was to take place.
It was only at the October 3rd meeting, called by Insp McGinn, that others were informed of the date and time of the proposed search.
Between 1 p.m. and 2 p.m. on that day, Dave O'Connell, news editor of the Star, received an anonymous telephone call.
The caller said something of interest in relation to the Gilligan case was about to occur and that the Criminal Assets Bureau was about to raid the offices of Hanahoe solicitors.
By the time the gardai entered the Hanahoe offices there were about six reporters and photographers outside. The informant had telephoned more media organisations than just the Star.
The High Court subsequently awarded £100,000 in damages for the harm done to the Hanahoe firm by the leaking of the information that a raid was about to occur on its offices.
The manner in which the "media circus" was organised suggested clearly that the Hanahoe firm had been engaged in disreputable conduct. As a finding of fact the High Court held that the Hanahoe firm had "the highest reputation amongst their colleagues and amongst the gardai".
It described the leaking of the news of the leak as "an outrageous interference with [the Hanahoe firm's] privacy and their constitutional rights".
The High Court judge who heard the case taken by Michael Hanahoe and Co against the State, Mr Justice Kinlen, said the leaking of the information "may well be a criminal offence".
He said: "The court is satisfied as a matter of probability that the information to the media emanated from a Garda source."
So what had the Garda authorities done about this "outrageous interference" with privacy and constitutional rights and what may well have been a criminal offence?
The Garda Commissioner, Mr Pat Byrne, writing to the Incorporated Law Society, which had protested at what had been done to the Hanahoe firm, said he had "nothing" to indicate the information (about the raid) came from within the Garda.
Following the leak Insp McGinn asked each officer with whom she had been associated whether they had been responsible for the leak.
Mr Justice Kinlen observed: "Mirabile dictu [most marvellous to relate] each officer denied he was the source of the leak".
The judge noted: "This was the only investigation by the Garda authorities." He went on to state: "The court is surprised at the attitude of the Commissioner and the gardai to the investigation of this undoubted leak, which may well have been a criminal offence".
Almost certainly the perpetrator or perpetrators of this leak are within the State's law enforcement agencies. Such individuals are invested with enormous power.
They are presumably now confident that if they were to engage in what might well be a little criminality themselves or in an abuse of constitutional rights, they have nothing to fear.