The Morris Tribunal was a public inquiry to address allegations of the 1990s and early 2000s against the Garda Síochána, the national police force of Ireland.
Subjects explored included suggestions of corrupt and dishonest policing in County Donegal but its recommendations and conclusions have more widespread consequences and importance.
The extent of culpability ranged from instances of negligence to, in the cases of Superintendent Lennon and Detective Garda McMahon, of corruptly orchestrating the planting of ammunition and hoax explosives.
Chief Supt Denis Fitzpatrick, who was cited as being 'gravely at fault' in not investigating the activities Lennon and McMahon relating to implicating a person as IRA informer, took early retirement from the Garda in July 2004.
[7] was to set up five separate Working Groups to consider: The third report [8] deals with allegations made by Bernard Conlon that he was acting as an agent of the Garda Síochána in respect of his being found on the nightclub/public house premises of Frank McBrearty Snr in Raphoe on 31 August 1997, and further that in making a complaint that two men arrived at his door late on the evening of 20 June 1998 he was acting as an agent of the Garda Síochána.
The report recommends that the use of a person as a Garda agent and witness needs to be subject to strict controls and that urgent consideration has to be given to the formulation of written guidelines to cover this aspect of police work.
The Tribunal has concluded that an 'explosive device' was caused to be put on the mast by former Sergeant John White for the purpose of using section 30 of the Offences against the State Acts to arrest some of the protestors although it could not go so far as to say that he actually placed it there.
This module[10] examined the circumstances surrounding the alleged planting of a firearm 22 May 1998, to effect the arrest and detention of seven persons (members of the traveller community) at Burnfoot, County Donegal at 8.00 AM the following day on foot of search warrants and the investigation relating to this.
While Detective Sergeant White was acquitted on a criminal charge[11] on 27 July 2006 of possession of a firearm for an unlawful purpose, the Tribunal was satisfied that he planted a shotgun at the Travellers' encampment so as to justify an arrest under section 30 of the Offences against the State Act.
It says that firm but fair measures relating to discipline are required to restore morale and if such action is not taken, the abuses which led to the establishment of the Tribunal will be repeated.
The Burnfoot Report also indicates that the Tribunal has been disturbed by the manner in which search warrants under section 29 of the Offences against the State Act are issued by Garda Superintendents.
The Tribunal recognises that there are very limited occasions upon which time would be so pressing as to make it impossible to follow such a procedure and that, in any event, a residual power for such eventuality could, perhaps, still be vested in a senior officer of the Garda Síochána to be used in exceptional circumstances.
White stated in a media interviews that the Tribunal findings against him, were based on "hearsay, innuendo and rumour", – rather than the thousands of documents admitted as evidence and hundreds of days at hearing.