Tánaiste and Minister for Justice Frances Fitzgerald is expected to appoint a senior member of the judiciary to examine allegations made by a Garda whistleblower.
Ms Fitzgerald is expected to make the annoucement over the coming days.
Speaking before an Oireachtas committee on Wednesday morning, the Minister said she would ensure the claims were investigated fully.
“I will consider in great detail how to respond to them, and what is the best possible way to take this further, to analyse and make sure there is a process in place. I will certainly do it in a way that protects the whistleblowers and that is fair, and is seen to deliver justice to all.”
Ms Fitzgerald was responding to allegations of a concerted campaign within An Garda Síochána to discredit a whistleblower which have been made by two other members of the force.
It is alleged efforts were made to monitor the whistleblower, including his activity in the Garda’s PULSE database and to discredit him by negatively briefing journalists and politician and that intelligence about him was gathered.
The veracity of the claims, made last week, has yet to be tested.
As the controversy escalated, the Garda press office issued a statement Wednesday saying Garda Commissioner Nóirín O’Sullivan “would like to make it clear that she was not privy to nor approved of any action designed to target any Garda employee who may have made a protected disclosure and would condemn any such action.
“It would be inappropriate for An Garda Síochána to comment on the specifics of any protected disclosure,” the statement read.
“In order to maintain public confidence in An Garda Síochána, we are anxious that the full content of the disclosures giving rise to the commentary be comprehensively examined at the earliest opportunity.
“The Commissioner wishes to re-iterates that any employees in An Garda Síochána who bring forward any concerns or issues they might have will be taken seriously and the matters examined.”
Earlier, Independent TD Clare Daly said there was a “huge gulf” between the public statements of Commissioner O’Sullivan on the protection of whistleblowers and the reality on the ground.
Reiterating her call for the Commissioner to resign, she said: “I know for a fact that people who have come forward on the watch of Commissioner O’Sullivan and made protected disclosures have had no contact from her at all in relation to their claims and that people in their stations who bullied and intimidated them have been included on the promotions list while they are out sick from work - isolated, harassed, on very low pay.
“The reality for those people is the complete and utter polar opposite of what the Commissioner has said.”
Ms Daly told RTÉ's Morning Ireland: "In essence what is being said is that there was a deliberate, organised campaign to, in essence, annihilate a whistleblower. The word came down from the top that this person had to be crushed.
“There is a huge gulf between what the Commissioner is saying in public in support of whistleblowers and what’s going on behind the scenes.”
She noted the O’Higgins Report “gave evidence of that gulf between the statements and the reality”, and recalled “once the O’Higgins report was published myself and Deputy Mick Wallace publicly called for the Commissioner to go.
“I think that is even more the case now .”
She said she didn’t see the need for another inquiry, asking: “What more information does the Government need before it is going to take action? I think the Commissioner should go and if the Government don’t deal with this the Minister is going to find herself joining her pretty quickly.”
Earlier, the president of the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors (AGSI) Antoinette Cunningham questioned the effectiveness of the new whistleblowing legislation.
She said it was regrettable that the systems in place were not providing security and reassurance for people to make protected disclosures.
“Whatever systems are in place within the organisation do not seem to be standing up, they do not seem to be providing the security and reassurance to people that they can make protected disclosures in a safe, secure environment.”
She said: “AGSI have long expressed our concerns about the internal policies within the gardaí, particularly when we are told that one of the confidential recipients we can make confidential disclosures to is GSOC.
“GSOC investigate gardaí for other matters relating to discipline and on the other hand they’re supposed to be a confidential recipient.
“To us there is a very clear conflict of interest here. We’ve long expressed that view internally and externally about whistleblowing in the Garda Síochana and those are the kinds of things that incite lack of confidence in our membership.”
