Mr. John O'Mahoney:

April 2013. Now that the Chairman has raised the issue, one of these people contacted me in April 2013 and wanted to know why I had not interviewed him as part of the investigation. That was when it became public that my investigation had been forwarded to the Minister. At that stage, I spoke with him and asked him again that if he had any information I would be willing to listen to him, to sit down and to give him a fair hearing. That was on 23 April. Subsequently, for somebody who did not have confidence to report within An Garda Síochána, he did report through our fraud policy in June 2013.

He reported somewhere in the region of 17 separate allegations relating to three members. A full-scale investigation was carried out into the matter under a chief superintendent and a file was forwarded to the Director of Public Prosecutions, DPP.

Further on my answer to Deputy McDonald's question on whether I engaged, I did not engage because I had information from the PULSE system. Bear in mind that I was doing my examination and finding that, in most cases but not all, what was on PULSE did not accurately reflect what these people were alleging. In fairness, if they had had the full information, they might not have made the allegations. I had that information. Bearing in mind the issue of confidential reporters and confidential recipients and honouring that system - indeed, one of these people is still anonymous or has not gone public - I would have gone back to the Commissioner had I any reason to interview those people and asked him whether I could find out for definite who they were. I would have certainly engaged with them during the course of my investigation. That was prior to 28 March.