The Garda Commissioner has not yet decided whether officers investigating the "Colombia Three" will travel to the South American country, despite yesterday's insistence by Minister for Justice Michael McDowell that such a trip was now a certainty, writes Mark Brennock, Chief Political Correspondent
For the second day running, the Garda cast doubt on an assertion by Mr McDowell in relation to whether gardaí will go to Colombia.
Mr McDowell said on radio yesterday: "I was told at the most senior level of the Garda Síochána that they were definitely going to do it [ travel to Colombia] and I could quote them on that."
On Newstalk 106 he described as "inaccurate" and as "spin" a report in this newspaper yesterday, that gardaí had cast doubt on his statement that a Garda visit to Colombia was "probable".
But when asked to comment yesterday on Mr McDowell's statement that he had been told "at the most senior level" that a visit was "definite" a spokesman for Garda Commissioner Noel Conroy made it clear that this decision had not yet, in fact, been made.
"Gardaí are of the opinion that it may be beneficial for officers to go to Colombia," the commissioner's spokesman told The Irish Times. "If that remains the position we will definitely go." It is understood that no decision will be made until gardaí decide whether there is information of value that they can glean in Colombia, and they have not yet made this assessment.
The decision is an operational one and therefore one entirely within the remit of the Garda authorities and not the Minister - a point which Mr McDowell accepts and indeed highlights regularly.
Labour leader Pat Rabbitte yesterday demanded an explanation of Government policy in relation to the three fugitives who returned from Colombia last month.
"After all the huffing and puffing by the Government and in particular by the PDs, the sum total of the Cabinet's deliberations is that a couple of gardaí may or may not be sent on a fool's errand to Colombia," he said in a statement.
"The Taoiseach broke his holidays, the PDs were supposed to walk out of Government, the acting Justice Minister, Mary Harney, wanted the men at a minimum to serve their sentences in Irish jails. The returned Justice Minister, Michael McDowell, indignantly summoned the Garda Commissioner (not the acting Justice Minister) to explain the orchestrated publicity coup when the men presented themselves to three different Garda stations."
He said it was regrettable that the three had "upstaged the Government and indeed our democratic system". But he added: "The PDs may have persuaded their supporters that they would have done the devil and all were it not for Fianna Fáil 'being soft on the Provos', but it is clear that the Government is united in hoping that the issue will peter out.
"An Taoiseach has fallen silent on the issue. It is time that someone explain the Government's policy on this matter, if it has a policy."