The Labour Party has called for an independent inquiry into reports that gardai and a senior civilian employee in the Garda Transport Section accepted free trips to Spain, Portugal and Italy.
The company that paid for the recreational trips is one of a number which supplies the Garda with tyres for its fleet of cars and commercial vehicles.
It is understood that the gardai and the official of the transport section had golfing trips while on visits to Spain and Portugal that do not appear to have involved any inspections of tyre-manufacturing. On a previous trip to northern England in 1997 they attended a Manchester United soccer match.
Yesterday a spokesman for Labour said: "The matters which emerged over the past few days give rise to concern. If there is an investigation of these events, it should be totally independent.
"This further underscores the need for an independent authority which the party has called for in its recent policy document on the Garda."
The Garda Press Office said yesterday that no internal disciplinary inquiry was under way; rather the "procedural aspects" of gardai and officials accepting such trips were being investigated by Chief Supt Michael McCarthy of the Garda National Traffic Police Bureau. He was appointed yesterday to investigate the reports in the Sunday Business Post that five gardai and a civil servant took foreign trips which were paid for by Advance Pitstop, the Republic's largest supplier of car tyres.
Advance Pitstop is midway through its third contract to supply tyres to the Garda Transport Section. It is understood its annual contract with the Garda is worth around £600,000 a year.
The company's managing director, Mr Desmond Burke-Kennedy, yesterday said he could not comment on the reports because of a pending court case.
The court case concerns a former senior figure in the company who was dismissed last year.
It is reported that Advance Pitstop paid costs of up to £45,000 for trips to Puerto Banus, Spain, in October 1998; Vilamoura Marinotel, Portugal, in October last year; and the Grand Hotel Olympic, Rome, in September 1999. It is claimed that the trip to Spain included a golf outing on the Ryder Cup course at Valderrama, near Cadiz.
The Department of Justice said yesterday the matter was an internal one for the Garda. There was no indication that any outside State agency was investigating any possible conflict of interest.