Shatter: Lowry media coverage 'echoes McCarthyism'
Justice Minister Alan Shatter has said he is unwilling to take part in "an unethical media project of compiling a blacklist of elected TDs" that ministers should not meet on official business or talk to.
Minister Shatter was hitting out at what he's called a "grossly misleading" newspaper headline which quoted him as saying he refused to reveal whether he had met Michael Lowry following the publication of the Mahon Tribunal report.
He is the only member of the Cabinet who has declined to confirm whether or not he has met with his former party colleague in the wake of the Moriarty Tribunal report 13 months ago.
A report in this morning's Irish Independent said Minister Shatter had "defiantly" refused to say if he had met with Deputy Lowry.
In a statement this afternoon Minister Shatter said he is determined not to prejudice matters which may arise from the examinations of the tribunal report by gardaí or the DPP.
The Minister described the headline - 'Shatter - I refuse to reveal if I met Lowry' - as "grossly misleading" and said he had told the journalist he was "not participating in Independent Newspapers agenda".
He says the question whether he had met the Tipperary North TD was designed to get a response to publish a story that would condemn Michael Lowry, or imply guilt by association, or both.
"I am unwilling to engage in an unethical media project of compiling a blacklist of elected TDs that Ministers should not meet on legitimate official business and also with whom no conversations should ever take place," his statement continued.
"It is worth asking in this context, in addition to Michael Lowry, who from Sinn Féin, Fianna Fáil and TDs from smaller parties and none should be included in such list?
"Should Ministers only legitimately engage with those TDs with whose words and deeds, both past and present, they agree or with those approved by the media?"
Minister Shatter said the media coverage of ministers' meetings with Deputy Lowry was "a slippery slope we should not slide down nor encourage".
"It has echoes of the discredited McCarthy era of the 1950s in US politics," he said.
"We should not allow such an approach to gain even a foothold in a robust constitutional democracy that takes political elective office and constituency representation seriously."
