Taoiseach defends McDowell’s actions

TAOISEACH Bertie Ahern yesterday insisted there was no Government campaign to bring down the Centre for Public Inquiry (CPI), the independent investigative body led by Frank Connolly.

Mr Ahern staunchly defended Justice Minister Michael McDowell’s handling of the Connolly affair, saying he had “dealt with this matter at all times in a proper way”.

The minister has accused Mr Connolly of travelling to Colombia on a false passport in April 2001 as part of a wider IRA plot to provide FARC rebels with explosives training.

Mr McDowell has admitted he provided to the Irish Independent a copy of the bogus application used to obtain the false passport allegedly used by Mr Connolly. Mr McDowell has also admitted telling “the plain, unvarnished truth” about Mr Connolly in September to Chuck Feeney, the Irish-American billionaire whose charitable organisation was funding the CPI. The €800,000-a-year funding was subsequently stopped.

Yesterday, Mr Ahern faced a grilling from Opposition TDs who accused Mr McDowell of abusing his office and interfering with due process.

Green Party leader Trevor Sargent said Mr McDowell had “turned himself into a one-man Star Chamber”. He pointed out that the CPI had been examining the Department of Justice’s €30 million purchase of a Co Dublin site, Thornton Hall, at the time of Mr McDowell’s interventions.

But Mr Ahern responded: “There is no question of there being a campaign against the CPI, which happens to be Mr Connolly’s employer. The matter centres around the fraudulent use of an Irish passport and the activities of persons belonging to a proscribed organisation bent on subverting the State.”

Both Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny and Labour leader Pat Rabbitte said it was clear Mr Connolly had questions to answer. But they criticised the Taoiseach for refusing to adequately explain why Mr McDowell had acted the way he did.

Mr Kenny said: “On September 4, 2005, the minister stated on Today with Pat Kenny: ‘As a minister, I am not supposed to just throw out into the public domain facts which haven’t been proven in court about people.’ By deliberately leaking information to a journalist, the minister has breached his own ethics.”

Mr Rabbitte said: “The minister has based his justification for what he did on his belief there was a threat to our democratic system and institutions. I and Deputy Kenny asked the Taoiseach what was that threat, but he evaded the answer.”

Mr Ahern left it to the minister to address that issue, making it clear that Mr McDowell would be speaking on behalf of the Government. But he stated: “Almost all sides of the House have condemned the activities of a small number in a group of persons who travelled to Colombia and who were engaged in activities that could not be regarded as benign.

“They brought this country into disrepute by their actions with a vicious band of narco-guerillas who have wreaked havoc on innocent people in their own country.”