Top-secret files held on the 1970 Arms Crisis by the Garda, including the original handwritten notes of witness interviews, will not be released to any new inquiry into the affair, The Irish Times has learned.
Currently the Taoiseach's Department, the Department of Justice, the Chief State Solicitor's Office, the Office of the Attorney General and the Garda are each trawling their own files.
Each will supply a report to the Minister for Justice, Mr O'Donoghue, by the end of next week or the middle of the following week. He, in turn, will furnish a complete report to the Cabinet "within two or three weeks".
Some new documentation has already been turned up by the latest examination, although much of the work has concentrated on papers already submitted to the National Archives under the 30-year rule. Neither the Berry papers nor any other private files are being sought for the investigation.
The Minister and other senior figures in Government do not now favour the appointment of either a panel of historians or a member of the judiciary to carry out a more detailed investigation afterwards.
Instead, they are veering towards appointing an archivist, who would simply produce a schedule that would place each document in chronological order. The files would then be made publicly available in the National Archives.
"This would show the order of events: `A' department said this on `B' date, `X' department wrote this on `Y' date. After that, people could go off to the archives, read the originals and make up their own minds," said a source.
In addition, the Government is prepared to release some papers in advance of the 30-year rule if they are contained in files that began before then. "Some documents were not released because of that," said a source.
However, the Garda will not open its files on the affair. They are prepared to produce a report for the Minister but are not willing to open their internal files for public inspection. "The gardai will never surrender anything like that except in a court hearing," said one informed source.
These would include the original handwritten notes taken during interviews with key figures, including Capt James Kelly, and, in particular, his superior officer, Col Michael Hefferon.
The latter's statement was later altered by persons so far still unidentified to exclude any details of his contacts at the time with the minister for defence, Mr Jim Gibbons.
Yesterday a number of Government sources rejected suggestions that Fianna Fail and the Progressive Democrats are divided.
"All papers available will be looked at, not just those dealing with the Hefferon statement," the Government spokesman confirmed.
Some Progressive Democrats had feared that a narrow inquiry into this issue would effectively turn into a "trial" of the former leader of the PDs and minister for justice, Mr Des O'Malley.
In the Seanad on Wednesday Mr O'Donoghue said he appreciated that some felt that the changes made to the Hefferon witness statement were "inherently incapable of innocent explanation".
Some believed that "the only questions needing answers relate to the identity and motivation of those who, on this understanding, sought to perpetrate a miscarriage of justice".
"However, I would counsel extreme caution. I do not believe that our proper understanding of what happened 30 years ago will be helped by a rush to premature conclusions," he said.
Rejecting the expert-panel proposal, a Government source said: "This notion that you could appoint three people to give an independent view is nonsense. Imagine Ruth Dudley Edwards's version compared to Tim Pat Coogan's."
Meanwhile, the Independent Donegal TD, Mr Harry Blaney, has confirmed that he wants Mr O'Malley to step aside as chairman of the Dail's Foreign Affairs Committee.
But he denied suggestions that he had pressured the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, to get Mr O'Malley to stand down. "I will see what will come out of the current investigation. There is no point posing hypothetical questions," he said.
