Leadership battle - PDs’ happy family veneer can’t hide rift

WHETHER he is banning minors from pubs, changing the drinking laws, deporting Nigerian students, or smearing a Fine Gael spokesman as Dr Goebbels, Justice Michael McDowell is never far from controversy.

In political hot water again, this time over a power struggle with Progressive Democrat leader Mary Harney, the combative Minister for Justice was back in step with the Tánaiste yesterday as they moved swiftly to gloss over their differences.

Under a veneer of unity in front of the public gaze, they sang from the same hymn sheet in a transparent exercise in damage limitation. But, despite a flurry of denials, everything is not rosy in the PD garden.