Sean Aylward, the secretary general of the Department of Justice, was named in the Dail last week as the man who complained to gardai about a report written by McCaffrey when he worked for the Evening Herald last year.

The report, based on a leak from an unnamed source, contained details of an investigation by barrister George Birmingham into the Garda's handling of the murders of two women in Grangegorman, Co Dublin. An innocent man, Dean Lyons, confessed to the murders, but later retracted his confession.

However, the Sunday Tribune can reveal today that, two years ago, Aylward personally sanctioned the release of documents to Catholic church authorities which ultimately led to the sacking of a prison chaplain from his job at Castlerea prison. The chaplain has since been awarded 40,000 by the equality tribunal in compensation for the victimisation suffered at the hands of Aylward, who was head of the prison service at the time.

Equality Officer Vivian Jackson, who heard the discrimination case in April last year, was highly critical of the treatment of the chaplain, Fr Donal Morris, by Aylward and the prison service.

The prison service "should have been aware of the practice as regards confidentiality surrounding claims before this tribunal and indeed the statutory requirement that investigations are held in private, " Jackson said.

He also noted that an official in the prison service under Aylward "had concerns about copying the material" to the church authorities, but said "he was instructed to do so".

The prison service appealed the 40,000 victimisation award to the Labour Court.

However, two weeks ago, a few days before the hearing was due to begin, it withdrew its appeal.

The Data Protection Commissioner also ruled that the leaking of confidential personnel files on an employee was in breach of the Data Protection Act.

When contacted by the Sunday Tribune, Fr Morris said that to date he "has received no apology from the CEO of the prison service or the minister [for Justice]" for the victimisation he suffered as a result of trying to legitimately pursue his employment rights.

A spokesman for the Irish prison service said that there was "an ongoing legal dispute with a former prison chaplain and as this was a personnel affair it would be inappropriate to comment any further".

Meanwhile, it has emerged that justice minister Michael McDowell assured Mick McCaffrey that he would not be arrested for publishing the leaked story last year. Writing in this newspaper today, McCaffrey recalls meeting the minister "in an informal setting" just a few days after McDowell had become Tanaiste and about a month after the contentious article was published.

McCaffrey "jokingly asked him if I was going to be arrested over the Lyons controversy.

He told me not to worry. It was very much an off-the-cuff remark but I felt after hearing it that things would be alright and I had nothing to be concerned about. He says that he didn't know at this meeting that I would be arrested and I have to take him at his word."