In September last year I wrote about the disturbing case of investigative journalist Gemma O'Doherty, who was fired from the Irish Independent in strange circumstances.

She was made compulsorily redundant by the paper's publisher, Independent News & Media (INM), after she revealed that Ireland's police chief had had speeding penalty points wiped from his driving record.

O'Doherty sued INM for unfair dismissal and her case will be heard this week by the Ireland's employment appeals tribunal (EAT).

And the star witness is expected to be none other than the police chief himself, the former Garda commissioner Martin Callinan. He resigned in March following criticism of his handling of information from two Garda whistleblowers. O'Doherty had been investigating the whistleblowers' disclosures.

According to a Sunday Business Post article, Callinan has been served with an official summons to attend the tribunal and give evidence.

O'Doherty will tell the EAT panel how she was described as "a rogue reporter" by her editor, Stephen Rae, after calling at Callinan's house last April during her inquiries into his driving record.

The tribunal will also hear that two Irish Independent executives visited Garda headquarters to apologise for O'Doherty's supposedly intrusive approach.

O'Doherty is also pursuing legal actions against INM for defamation and personal damages.

As for Rae - a former editor of the Garda Review magazine - it subsequently emerged that he too had had penalty points deducted from his driving licence. He did not reply to my calls when I tried to reach him about that matter in October last year.

I pointed out then, as I had before, that the rest of Ireland's mainstream media failed to cover O'Doherty's sacking and Rae's penalty points deduction. It is also noticeable that the O'Doherty's coming EAT appearance was reported only in the Sunday Business Post.

Source: Sunday Business Post (paywall)