Barry Cowen sacking about basic failure to be held to account by the Dáil, says Taoiseach

Micheál Martin (right) rejected the charge that he failed to allow due process to occur in Barry Cowen's (left) case, saying ministers have to be responsible to the Dáil. Picture: RollingNews.ie

Barry Cowen’s sacking as Agriculture Minister was about his failure to account for his actions over his drink-driving incident in the Dáil and not the incident itself, Taoiseach Micheál Martin has said.

It was reported at the weekend that a Garda Siochana Ombudsman Commission report has found Mr Cowen did not seek to avoid a Garda checkpoint 2016. Mr Martin said his decision to remove Mr Cowen from Cabinet was about a basic failure to be held to account by the Dáil.

“But the decision taken at the time was not in respect of GSOC at all,” Mr Martin said.

He rejected the charge that he failed to allow due process to occur in Mr Cowen’s case, saying ministers have to be responsible to the Dáil.

“Barry and I may disagree. There are issues that I've been pretty consistent on that nobody could be happy about in terms of the release of personal information pertaining to Barry at the time. I wasn't happy about that,” he said.

Mr Martin said he has not yet seen the GSOC report and was led to believe that it is not concluded yet. “So yes, I look forward to seeing the GSOC report. But I haven't seen it,” he said.

Fianna Fáil backbenchers

The Taoiseach has rejected internal party criticism over his failure to facilitate a backbench meeting at the Fianna Fáil think-in.

Mr Martin said the public is not interested in “excessive navel-gazing” by political parties and want his party in Government to get on with sorting out the country.

A group of 29 backbench TDs and Senators who met earlier this summer, without permission from the leadership, had hoped to hold a meeting as part of the wider think-in in Mullingar, but it was not allowed.

Mr Martin rejected assertions that Fianna Fáil has an identity problem, saying his party colleagues are “in touch” with the needs of the people.

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“I don't accept that. I don't accept it as an identity issue, I think there's an over fixation by certain people on that,” he said.

He said the party's preparations for the 2024 local and European elections are already underway with selection conventions to commence this year.

“We have written to every constituency committee across the country to say get ready,” he said.

“2023 will be a year when we'd be planning for conventions, we'd be holding some conventions before the end of this year. I think we're more advanced than other parties are in terms of election preparation,” he added.