Mr Power was brought through some of the documents which were produced for the tribunal only in the last few months, despite the inquiry having been up and running since last February.

The lateness was due largely to an apparent lack of awareness in the department, and from Ms Fitzgerald, that they had anything of interest to tell Judge Peter Charleton’s tribunal.

The judge is inquiring into alleged attempts to smear Sgt Maurice McCabe at the O’Higgins commissionof inquiry.

It was only when a political controversy arose late last year — which brought the Government within inches of the abyss — thatMs Fitzgerald and herformer officials realised they might have somethingto contribute. She handed back her seal of office anddeclared that she would be vindicated at the tribunal.

So it was that the former minister took her place in the public gallery in George’s Hall bright and early to await the call to the witness box. But she had to wait some time because Mr Power didn’t finish until after lunch. By then he had been brought through documents which amounted to fresh disclosures, and implied that the department, and possibly the minister, was well briefed about the various issues involving Maurice McCabe at the time.

Ms Fitzgerald waitedpatiently and perhapsreflected on the fact that she was about to give evidence to a tribunal about what she knew about a commission of inquiry she had set up.

She entered the witness box at 2.22pm and was brought through her career all the way up to the months preceding the O’Higgins commission in 2015 as a sort of warm-up for the evidence to come.

She was given the justice portfolio in May 2014 when Alan Shatter resigned on publication of the GuerinReport. (Shatter was later found in court to havebeen treated unfairly in the report).

Maurice McCabe’s travails were well known to her. He contacted her in October 2014 looking for a meeting. By then, he had effectively been vindicated over hisconcerns about ticket fixing.

The Guerin report hadendorsed his concern about criminal investigations in Cavan/Monaghan andrecommended the setting up of a full statutory inquiry, which would ultimately be the O’Higgins commission.

Yet he was still having problems at work. He wrote to the minister asking for a meeting to set out his concerns. She acquiesced and invited McCabe and his wife Lorraine to her office for a meeting in October 2014.

The meeting went well. Sgt McCabe passed on his concerns about issues around ticket fixing and, crucially, what he described as serious bullying and harassment he was subjected to at work.

Afterwards, she contacted the then Garda commissioner Nóirín O’Sullivan about the matter, whoassured her that she was doing what she could.

By the following February, things hadn’t improved for Sgt McCabe. He wrote again to the minister about the bullying and aboutarticles written in the Garda Review, which he felt were directed at him.

Now she was particularly concerned and asked that a report be compiled into what he was enduring and what was being done about it.

“I had hoped that theseissues would be dealt with and then when I got letters [from Sgt McCabe] I felt I needed a report on what was being done to help him.”

Her intervention did the job. She got a report and soon after, in late March 2015, Sgt McCabe responded to a letter from her saying that things were much better now.

“It’s great to be able to say for the first time in years that I’m happy going to work,” he wrote.

And that was how things stood just before O’Higgins got under way. The minister and the garda commissioner had ensured that the whistleblower wouldn’t be bullied, that he would be treated as a valuable member of the force, who had already done a service by highlighting problems in policing.

Then along came the O’Higgins commission to upset the harmoniousenvironment for everybody.

On day two of the hearings, the commissioner’s legal team indicated that they were intent on challenging Sgt’s McCabe motivation in raising his complaints of malpractice.

A row developed and suddenly it appeared as ifthe issue was “politicaldynamite”, as noted by one of the solicitors present.

An email was dispatched to Frances Fitzgerald’sprivate secretary about what had unfolded regarding the garda sergeant whosewelfare she had so carefully dealt with a few monthspreviously.

The tribunal lawyer,Diarmuid McGuinness asked her did she not recognise this development as political dynamite.

“No I very much saw this as an issue that had arisen,” she said. “It was being dealt with, both sides were represented and capable of responding to whatever arose.”

She did not display any concern that this involved the garda who had sorecently been the subject of bullying over making the complaints that were now the subject of the commission’s inquiry.

She did not displayeven any curiosity asto how come he was now being challenged, just when she thought everything had been sorted out, credit for which went at least partially to herself.

She told the tribunal that she doesn’t remember reading the email but she accepts she must have.

Significantly, she also said that she made a conscious decision not to interfere in what was going on. She doesn’t remember reading the mail, but she somehow recalls making the conscious decision on how to react to it.

At the conclusion of the day’s proceedings, she walked down from the witness box and exchanged brief pleasantries with Maurice McCabe and his wife Lorraine.

This was their firstencounter since that meeting in her department in October 2014. So much water under the bridge since then.

Her direct evidence continues today and then she will be cross examined by Michael McDowell for Sgt McCabe.