Reports this morning claim the Garda Ombudsman Commission made the decision to undertake a security sweep of its offices as a senior garda appeared to be privy to information about an investigation being undertaken by the GSOC.

The Sunday Times reports that the level of detail known by the Garda last summer was one reason GSOC hired a British firm to examine internal security.

It is understood the Garda had specific information about text that had been removed from a report, but had been discussed at a meeting at the commission's offices.

The Justice Minister Alan Shatter has ruled out an independent inquiry into alleged bugging at GSOC, and the Garda Commissioner insists no members of the force carried out surveillance at its headquarters.

The Justice Minister will appear before the Oireachtas oversight committee this week to answer questions about his actions on the issue.

The Sunday papers contain conflicting reports of the controversy's latest developments, however.

The Sunday Independent has however reported that the GSOC “wrongly interpreted” an account of a senior garda member, who the Independent name as Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan.

The paper says their sources believe the comments by Callinan were “misinterpreted by two officials in the Ombudsman’s office as indicating that the Garda Commissioner was privy to information that should only have been known to GSOC mismanagement” and that, subsequent to this misinterpretation “these officials fed this misunderstanding into the public interest report”.