McDowell defends record on garda affair
In a robust defence of his own record on the matter, which provoked outrage from the opposition, Mr McDowell denied that the Government had been reluctant or unwilling to set up a tribunal into the allegations.
He said when he was Attorney General in the previous Government he was “kept away” from full possession of all the information in relation to the Donegal incidents until late 2001.
He said the then Garda Commissioner Pat Byrne’s position was that certain categories of papers, related to pending prosecutions, would be sent to the DPP but should not be given to the then Justice Minister John O’Donoghue, or to Mr McDowell as Attorney General.
Describing Mr Byrne’s position as a misconception in law, Mr McDowell said he succeeded in insisting on his right to see documentation in late 2001.
He said the Government then acted as expeditiously as possible in establishing a tribunal.
“The record will show that as AG, I always held the highest standards in the dealing of the case and never deviated from them,” he said.
Mr McDowell also fired a broadside at the Rainbow Coalition. He said the “collapse of discipline” within the gardaí and the miscarriage of justice had taken place on their watch between 1995 and 1997.
“They were the people sitting at the Cabinet table when morale (in the gardaí) collapsed,” he contended.
The opposition and Frank McBrearty Jnr responded angrily to that claim yesterday, alleging Mr McDowell was trying to shift the blame away from his own Government.
In what is developing into a major political row over the Government’s action or lack of, Labour TD Brendan Howlin, who campaigned on behalf of the McBreartys in the Dáil, accused Mr McDowell of outrageous revisionism.
He said even a cursory look at the facts - without having the full details - would have alerted the Government to the need for a full inquiry.
He said the department and the ministers could be, at best, accused of negligence and, at worst, complicity in a cover-up.
His party leader, Pat Rabbitte, also responded, accusing him of smearing the opposition.
He pointed out that the secretary general in the department had told the tribunal that the first detailed report on the Donegal allegations were made in April 1999, almost two years after the Fianna Fáil-Progressive Democrat Coalition came to power.
Labour renewed its call for the role of the Commissioner, Justice and successive ministers to be included in the terms of reference of the tribunal.
Mr McDowell rejected an allegation made by Frank McBrearty Jnr that the Morris Tribunal deliberately withheld sections of the Carty Report from the public during tribunal hearings.
He denied the withdrawal by the State of its defence to the McBreartys’ High Court case for damages was an attempt to buy their silence.
In relation to the retirement of two superintendents criticised in the Morris Report, he said that “by doing so they have spared us the process of disciplinary inquiry”.
That led to accusations from the opposition of embarrassing events being swept under the carpet.
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