This is not the first Tusla notification in relation to a whistleblower that has come across a minister's desk in recent months, writes Katie Hannon.

I've seen correspondence that shows that Minister for Justice Frances Fitzgerald has in fact been in correspondence with a garda member in relation to a child protection Tusla notification, which was made about him by one of his garda superiors.

In this case, within the same week, the Health Service Executive said there was no evidence of abuse.

Second garda whistleblower says senior officer behind separate Tusla referral https://t.co/CjnDa94ou4 pic.twitter.com/NpPTrw7dRV — RTÉ News (@rtenews) February 10, 2017

This whistleblower told the minister that this Tusla referral was part of a campaign of harassment against him by a senior garda.

That complaint has been put into GSOC and that has been put into a protected disclosure that has been made by this whistleblower.

Just to be clear, this was an entirely different kind of complaint to the one made to Tusla about Maurice McCabe in 2013, which the agency says arose from a clerical error and again to be clear that is not what we're talking about here.

The McCabe report had a cut and paste mistake which was not acted on and this other report which very quickly finds that no evidence had been provided by the notifying gardaí.

Tusla has of course an obligation to assess complaints but serious damage can be suffered by gardaí when referrals are filed in error or without foundation.