A social worker has told the Disclosures Tribunal she was horrified when she studied a file involving false allegations against Sgt Maurice McCabe.

The Tribunal is examining if wrongful abuse allegations were used to try and discredit the garda whistleblower.

Social worker Clair Tobin is employed by the Child and Family Agency, Tusla - and in 2016 she was asked to examine the 'Ms D' file - which the Tribinal has heard contained a “litany of errors.”

The Tribunal has already been told it had a copy and paste mistake - outlining a completely false allegation of digital rape against Sgt Maurice McCabe.

Ms Tobin said she was horrified when she looked at the file and how it had been managed.

She agreed she hadn’t been sent quite important aspects of it and said this made her more concerned and more horrified.

Judge Peter Charleton asked her if she was sent a sanitised version of the file instead of one with all the warts in it and she said she couldn’t explain it but she said stuff wasn’t put in the file - when it should have been.

She told the Tribunal "I don’t know whether it was professional negligence or if it was intentional."

Judge Charleton said there were two aspects to it and questioned if at worst it’s a cover up or else someone was trying to circle the wagons and to pretend things weren’t as bad as they were.

Clair Tobin said she really didn’t know.

While a service manager with Tusla told the Tribunal she didn’t believe there was something sinister going on - but rather it was incompetence.