Evidence for the last two days has come from the State’s solicitor at the commission and the liaison officer between O’Higgins and the then Garda commissioner.

Both were apparently going night and day to keep feeding the O’Higgins commission with required information and feeding Nóirín O’Sullivan with accounts of what was going on.

The nights of insomnia were being suffered by those directly involved in the commission, which was examining claims of Garda malpractice made by Sergeant Maurice McCabe.

The tribunal is examining whether there were attempts to discredit the sergeant behind the closed doors of O’Higgins.

Yesterday, the tribunal heard that among the complaints made by McCabe were a number against senior officers. One actually accused then Garda commissioner Martin Callinan of corruption on the basis that he was promoting an officer whom McCabe had claimed had not performed his duty.

The claim was eventually dismissed. Other complaints were directed at an assistant commissioner, a chief superintendent, and two supers.

Counsel for the gardaí, Shane Murphy, brought the witness, State solicitor Annmarie Ryan through passages in the O’Higgins commission where McCabe’s claims of corruption were dismissed or faded away. He asked the witness what effect these claims had on the senior officers.

“The clients were like a deflated person, they were under enormous stress,” she said of the senior gardaí.

“In order to get them to sleep at night I used to say ring me (if they had any problems). I heard how stress affected their wives and children… some of them were under stress since 2008 and they just wanted an end to it.”

The passages read out and the testimony of Ms Ryan might have given the impression that the senior guards felt they were on trial at O’Higgins.

A few minutes later, Sgt McCabe’s counsel, Michael McDowell, brought the witness through other aspects of what emerged from O’Higgins.

The judge’s report had laid out in glowing terms that the sergeant had been truthful at all times, that he was a guard regarded as highly efficient, and that he had performed a service for both the force and the country.

Mr McDowell also referenced a line in the report which stated that some had cast aspersions on his client’s motives but that the judge had accepted his bona fides.

Then the lawyer turned to the sleepless nights.

“We heard about people not being able to sleep at night,” he stated. “I could make a similar…”

Before he could say case for my client, Judge Charleton beat him to it. “The very thought occurred to me,” he said.

So everybody wasn’t sleeping well. The passage in which Sgt McCabe’s allegations against the senior officers, that was read out by Mr Murphy, might, on its own, give the impression of Mr McCabe spreading groundless allegations all around the place.

The reality was that most of his complaints were upheld by O’Higgins and his contribution to outing the shoddy and unsupervised work received widespread praise.

And far from the senior gardaí effectively being in the dock, Sgt McCabe’s legal team made the submission at the conclusion of hearings that their man was the one in the dock.

But taken out of context, a different complexion can be put on all these things.

Former commissioner Nóirín O’Sullivan is expected to make an appearance in the witness box today, and next week will see Frances Fitzgerald arriving to give her version of events.