Opposition slate McDowell over media comments

OPPOSITION parties last night rounded on Justice Minister Michael McDowell for attacking the media over what he called a “feeding frenzy” on the Flood Report.

“One journalist says something and the rest demand that we respond,” Mr McDowell said of the media response to Mr Justice Feargus Flood’s findings that former Fianna Fáil minister Ray Burke received corrupt payments in the 1970s and 1980s.

The Progressive Democrats chairman asked if it was the media’s agenda that the PDs should withdraw from the Coalition because Mr Burke lied five years ago when he was seeking a Cabinet appointment. Instead, Mr McDowell said, the Government should concentrate on the real problems.

Opposition parties said the minister was attacking the media for asking legitimate questions of the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste about their knowledge of Ray Burke’s affairs in 1997.

Fine Gael said Minister McDowell’s comments were a far cry from the PD’s policy of bringing new probity to public life. Labour said it was a sad reflection on the PDs that their strongest attacks should be directed against the media rather than those who were condemned in the Flood Report.

The minister had said there was nothing he could do now about what happened in 1997, when Ray Burke was appointed to the Cabinet after telling the Taoiseach there was no truth in rumours he was involved in corruption. Conceding that the investigation into those rumours was inadequate, Mr McDowell said Mr Burke had lied.

Mr McDowell also said that if anybody in the media had evidence to back up rumours that a serving Government minister received a corrupt payment of £80,000, they should bring it to the Garda or to a tribunal.

Fine Gael frontbench member Gay Mitchell said the PDs were willing to accept assurances in order to serve their own personal advancement.

“Michael McDowell has gone completely overboard. Did he really expect the media to ignore the most shocking event since the Arms Trial?

“The PDs have presided over a total mismanagement of the public finances. Not only are the media correct to pursue the fall-out of the Flood Report, they should now indict the PDs on both counts.

Labour justice spokesman Pat Rabbitte said, “Minister McDowell says that there is nothing he could now do about what happened in 1997. This is certainly a change from the previously stated position of the PDs, who in 1999 successfully sought the resignation of the then Minister for Defence, Brian Lenihan, over events that had occurred in 1981.”