Bernard Conlon, a self-confessed perjurer of "limited intellect" and a long criminal record was used as an agent by two Donegal gardai in an effort to close down a nightclub owned by Frank McBrearty Jr, the Morris Tribunal has found.
Mr Justice Frederick Morris's third report - published today - found Mr Conlon later falsely claimed that Mr McBrearty's relatives, Michael Peoples and Mark McConnell, had threatened him with a silver bullet.
In a blunt assessment of Mr Conlon's claims dealt with in the Silver Bullet module of the tribunal, Mr Justice Morris also found that he lied in claiming that Co Meath private detective Billy Flynn attempted to bribe him.
The tribunal found that Mr Conlon became involved in a conspiracy against the McBrearty's family when he was induced into acting as an agent in a scheme orchestrated by Det Sgt John White of the Donegal Division with the assistance of Garda John Nicholson of the Sligo Division.
He was "paid" around IR£600 through the issuing of false witness expenses certificates to perjure himself before Letterkenny District Court after deliberately being "caught" drinking after hours at Mr McBrearty Jr's nightclub, Frankies, in Raphoe, Co Donegal in August 1997.
Det Sgt White and Garda Nicholson coached Mr Conlon's testimony in the prosecution that followed in 1998.
It also found that Supt Kevin Lennon of the Donegal Division was involved in concealing Mr Conlon's involvement when Assistant Commissioner Kevin Carty conducted an internal Garda inquiry into allegations by the McBreartys that gardai were conducting a vendetta against them.
Mr Justice Morris found that Det Sgt White's claim that he was being blamed for a wider web of corruption involving the Carty team and gardai based in Sligo and Donegal was false.
"These attacks were calculated to implicate his colleagues in various kinds of wrongdoing.
"No evidence has been advanced to support this theory, which the Tribunal views as extraordinary and sinister," the report said.
The report also rejected as "fanciful and bizarre" Det Sgt White's claim that the Carty team had entered into a deal with the McBrearty's to pin the blame for wider Garda corruption on him.
"It was clearly an attempt to muddy the waters and deflect the focus of the inquiry away from Detective Sergeant White."
While Det Sgt White's lies "strongly suggest" he was complicit in Mr Conlon's claim that Michael Peoples and Mark McConnell had issued threats to both of them, the tribunal found there insufficient evidence to make such a finding in fact.
Mr Conlon and Mr Peoples were arrested in October 1998 on foot of the claim and prosecuted two months later.
Prosecuting gardai could not be blamed for pursuing the investigation because they had not been appraised of all the facts by Det Sgt White and Supt Lennon.
"The Tribunal is not satisfied that the investigating gardaí in Sligo evinced any malicious intent in the conduct of this inquiry.
They were not part of any conspiracy to set up or frame Mark McConnell or Michael Peoples. They were deceived.
They had to operate within a web of lies and deceit spun by Bernard Conlon. Important information that would have been crucial to their enquiries was held back from them by their colleagues in Donegal."
The report also said that Mr Conlon's "strange" allegations against Mr Flynn should have given rise to suspicions in the Peoples case.
He alleged that Mr Flynn had offered a bribe to change his statement of evidence in relation to the after-hours incident in 1997 which had been supported by a follow-up letter.
The tribunal found that Mr Conlon, or someone on his behalf, had added a second page to the letter which was intended to suggested that Mr Flynn was attempting "menacingly bribe" him.
"There is no evidence of any kind of any improper conduct by Mr Flynn."
Mr Justice Morris also expressed "surprise" that when Sligo gardai and the Carty team did not take Mr Conlon's allegation seriously that they did not regards this of being of significance to the case against Mr Peoples and Mr McConnell.
Mr Justice Morris concluded that the module of the Tribunal had been "fed a continuum of lies by a number of witnesses including Bernard Conlon, Detective Sergeant John White, John Nicholson and others."
"Some lies were blatant and others, such as those of Detective Sergeant White, were carefully crafted and calculated to obscure the issues and cast blame on a number of his colleagues who were innocent of any wrongful or malicious behaviour in these events.
Much time and effort was wasted by the Tribunal because of the unwillingness of these people to tell the unbridled truth."
Mr Justice Morris there should be changes in structure, ethics, training and composition of an Garda Síochána to "militate against a recurrence of the extraordinary events chronicled in the reports".