A senior garda is under investigation over allegations of sexual misconduct following a complaint by a woman who made a previous complaint against another member of the force, the Sunday Independent has learned.
The woman, from the south west, made a complaint late last year following what sources say was the acrimonious break-up of a liaison with the other, more junior, member of the force.
The woman had claimed that she had been sexually assaulted.
It was subsequently determined that the allegation was unfounded.
The garda involved strenuously denied the allegation and claimed it was made because he had ended the relationship with the woman.
However, the woman subsequently claimed that she was the subject of further impropriety from a senior officer.
The matter has now been passed to the Garda Siochana Ombudsman Commission (GSOC) for investigation.
It is understood the woman's allegations against the senior officer include text messages of an explicit sexual nature.
The woman has made a complaint to GSOC, which is investigating the matter. No comment was available from GSOC yesterday.
The episode comes after an unrelated controversy in which a now-retired officer came under scrutiny after it was found he was in a relationship with a young woman from a notorious criminal family.
The officer came under investigation last year after one of his family reported the discovery of a false passport and other suspicious items among his belongings.
The retired officer is said to be still in the relationship with the woman, who is more than 20 years his junior and who he is understood to have met while investigating serious crime.
Members of the woman's family were understood to have been the subject of Garda investigations while the retired officer was working on cases relating to serious crime.
The family was at the centre of cases involving feuding over the past decade, and several members were arrested and charged in relation to serious offences. One close relative was also killed.
The allegations shocked senior members of the force, serving and retired, who had worked with the officer.
The latest revelations come only a week after it emerged that a female garda in Dublin has been suspended and is under investigation over alleged links to a major drugs gang based in Sligo.
It is suspected she was having an affair with a member of the gang.
Investigations carried out by the National Bureau of Crime Investigation (NBCI) into this matter began last year after it was claimed that the logon passwords of three young male gardai had been falsely used to download sensitive information from the Garda computerised crime database.
The information being accessed is understood to relate to gang activity and associations between Dublin and Sligo criminals involved in the drugs trade.
