JUSTICE Minister Alan Shatter was forced into a new Dail apology for releasing confidential garda information as mystery surrounds a garda report into the minister's infamous breath test.

Mr Shatter's second apology to Deputy Mick Wallace came as the garda authorities denied a report detailing an incident involving the minister and a young female garda at a drink-drive checkpoint existed.

However, informed sources told the Irish Independent a report on the incident was written up the day after it happened and described how the officer had to step back from the minister's car when he drove off.

It has emerged the garda authorities have so far failed to ask the four gardai on duty at the checkpoint on the night about what exactly happened when Mr Shatter was stopped.

As the controversy rolled on, Mr Shatter elaborated on the half-apology he made to Mr Wallace.

The minister said “with hindsight” it was a mistake to use the confidential information about Mr Wallace driving while on a phone given to him by the Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan.

“Is it something for which I owe Deputy Wallace an apology? It is and I have already apologised. Would I do it again? No.”

Taoiseach Enda Kenny was urged yesterday to get Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan to ask the gardai on duty for their version of events to clear up the matter.

But even the female officer who conducted the breath test with Mr Shatter has not been approached by the force authorities, informed sources said.

The Irish Independent has learned the report was typed up by the garda who requested a breath sample from the then Fine Gael frontbench opposition spokesman and presented to her superiors.

The report was not logged into the Pulse computerised system.

The document contained a full account of what the garda said happened on the night in question, in late 2008 or 2009.

However, Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan has refused to answer a series of questions posed by this newspaper on whether he plans to investigate the whereabouts of the report – and what level of inquiry he had made.

The report contains details of the perceived uncooperative behaviour of the minister, and a perception of a lack of effort to give a complete breath sample.

The report ends with the garda stating that she had to step back from Mr Shatter’s car as he left the scene, without being waved on.

Sources have said the garda also made a deliberate point of writing the report because at the time she was confused if she had been in the wrong to request a breath test from the TD in the first place, after he referred to Constitutional privilege for TDs to not be stopped.

The minister said to her: “Check your law book, it’s in the Constitution, you cannot stop me, I am going.”

On foot of the Irish Independent article yesterday stating the report had gone missing, Mr Shatter said his department's Secretary General had asked if there was a report and Mr Callinan had stated “no such report was generated”.

However a source with knowledge of the incident said the Commissioner was “wrong” and that indeed a report was filed and “passed up” to a senior officer “as is the standard procedure”.

“This is wrong, the report was detailed on all the events that took place and it finished up with an account of the minister driving off,” said a source familiar with the case.

The behaviour of the then Fine Gael children's spokesman was perceived to have been rude and uncooperative, to the point of belligerent.

Sources added it was the opinion of the garda that the minister did not take the breath test seriously.

On both occasions he gave a “quick puff”, an attempt deemed by gardai to have been lacking in effort.

Sources are adamant the TD did not indicate to the garda that he had asthma, while the minister repeatedly says he had informed the garda his condition was the reason he could not complete the breath test.

The minister said to the garda when she explained that he was being tested as part of a Mandatory Alcohol Test Checkpoint (MATCH): “Don’t you know who I am?”

When the garda said she did not recognise him, he said: “I am Alan Shatter”, and added that he was coming from the Dail.

The minister said yesterday, following publication of the Irish Independent’s story about the missing report, that “the Commissioner informed that no such report was generated by the garda member involved and a further local search of the garda computer system has failed to locate any such report”.

Online Editors