McDowell accuses Green Party supporters of vandalism

Minister for Justice Michael McDowell tonight accused Green Party supporters of being involved in vandalising his Progressive Democrats party offices during the Love Ulster riots last month.

Protesters smashed the windows of the central Dublin premises during three hours of unexpected violence on February 25.

Mr McDowell was replying to a question in the Dáil from former Green Party leader John Gormley on the riots when he said: “The Indymedia website produced footage of the Progressive Democrats’ offices being ransacked from the outside by Deputy Gormley’s type of people.”

An angry Mr Gormley immediately called on Mr McDowell to withdraw the remark.

He said: “That is way out of line. I’m sorry but the minister cannot abuse Dáil privilege in that fashion to make very serious allegations against me. I would not condone any such behaviour.”

Mr McDowell added: “The anoraked group that descended upon the office, would be the one which most people, including myself, would most closely associate with Mr Gormley’s party and his viewpoint.”

Mr Gormley interrupted: “That is outrageous. You have abused privilege in the past to engage in that sort of slur. You have misled the House previously.”

Protesting to the Ceann Comhairle, the Dublin South East TD added: “He should disown that last remark.”

But Mr McDowell further joked: “There was muesli in the air and open-toe sandals witnessed.”

Meanwhile, in reply to a question on the security arrangements for two recent stop-overs by US president George Bush at Shannon Airport, Mr McDowell declined to detail the scale or the cost.

But the minister said the number of gardaí present at the midwest hub was less than the 281 officers initially assigned to police the Love Ulster event.

“There were less people at Shannon for the Bush visits than were initially deployed at the Love Ulster rally,” he confirmed.

Mr Gormley said there were only nine people at the demonstration in Shannon, standing in the rain in the middle of the night.

He added: “Many people will be quite annoyed when they discover that a major security operation was mounted in Shannon to protect one man, while on the other hand there was an insufficient garda presence on the streets of Dublin, which failed to protect the citizens of Dublin from a rampaging mob engaged in wanton violence and causing millions of euro damage to businesses.”

The TD accused Mr McDowell of skewed priorities and queried why garda intelligence had not monitored warnings of violence on websites and internet blogs beforehand.

“How can you tell this House that you didn’t have a clue about what was going to happen?” he asked.

Mr McDowell replied: “I’m not acquainted with whatever websites Deputy Gormley spends the early hours of the morning staring at.

“The fact that only nine of Mr Gormley’s sympathisers turned up, if 500 of his friends turned up, he would have been the first to say I hadn’t made any preparations for it if there was an incident.”