Opposition hit out at 'bully boy' McDowell
Justice Minister Michael McDowell was today branded a bully-boy by the Opposition despite promising a Government apology to families framed by corrupt gardaí in Co Donegal.
Mr McDowell said people targeted by rogue officers in the events leading to the Morris Tribunal were owed a solemn letter of apology by successive governments including the Rainbow Coalition in the mid-1990s.
But Frank McBrearty Jr, who was wrongly accused of the murder of cattle dealer Richie Barron, and Labour Party leader Pat Rabbitte claimed Mr McDowell was trying to spread the blame for the miscarriage of justice.
“Mr McDowell is playing the blame game now, blaming everybody except himself. He’s trying to blame the Opposition,” said Mr Mc Brearty.
Mr Rabbitte called for the Morris Tribunal to probe the role of Justice Ministers and the Justice Department in the affair and branded Mr McDowell’s comments as “worthless bully-boy posturing.”
Mr McDowell said earlier that the Government would send a formal letter of apology to families claiming harassment by Donegal gardaí.
He told RTÉ Radio: “When the facts are out in the open … so that people know what is being apologised for, the state undoubtedly will owe the McBreartys, McConnells, the Peoples and various others involved in this affair a solemn apology for the way in which they were treated.
“That apology will be made on behalf of the state, on behalf of successive governments on whose watch various things happened, in particular the events between 1995 and 1997 which gave rise to this major miscarriage of justice.
“It will be formally delivered by a letter issued by the Government, having considered the matter in solemn and formal form, to them.”
He denied claims that he was trying to spread the blame for the events to the Opposition.
“People who are remedying these things now shouldn’t be the subject of political charges by people who were sitting at the Cabinet table when [garda] morale and management systems collapsed and when all of these things were being perpetrated on the McBreartys.”
Mr Rabbitte accused the minister of trying to shift the blame and smear the Opposition.
Mr Rabbitte, a member of the Rainbow Cabinet, said evidence to the Morris Tribunal showed that no minister or senior official was properly briefed on these issues until almost two years after the Rainbow had left office and Fianna Fáil and the PDs were in government with Mr McDowell as Attorney General.
He claimed that Opposition parties tried three times to have the tribunal’s terms of reference extended in 2001 and 2002 but Government TDs defeated the proposals each time.
“If the minister is really serious about the dirt he is now seeking to throw at Opposition parties, he should welcome an impartial investigation.
“I therefore invite him, for a fourth time, to widen the tribunal’s terms of reference so as to include an investigation of the role of the Department of Justice and of successive Ministers for Justice.
“If he does not accept the invitation, then his present charges and threats levelled against the Opposition can be dismissed as worthless bully-boy posturing.”
Judge Frederick Morris said in last week’s second interim report that the garda investigation of Mr Barron’s death in 1996 was “prejudiced, tendentious and utterly negligent in the highest degree“.
Superintendent Joseph Shelly and Detective Superintendent John McGinley, senior officers who were heavily criticised in the findings, will resign at the end of next month.
Mr McBrearty commented: “That’s not good enough. Those two gardaí should be sacked. The person who is making them retire – [Garda Commissioner] Noel Conroy - should go along with them.”
“I’m calling on the Government to set up an international taskforce to come in and investigate all these cases where false statements of confession were taken over the last 30 years.”
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