McDowell says he will not resign over Garda scandals

The Minister for Justice Michael McDowell has stated his determination not to resign in the wake of the second report from the Morris tribunal.

Frank McBrearty jnr last week demanded the Taoiseach Bertie Ahern sack Mr McDowell "because we have been telling him for nearly nine years, since he was attorney general of this country, that we are innocent people being framed for a crime that didn't even happen".

Speaking on RTÉ Radio yesterday, Mr McDowell said: "I'm certainly not going to resign." He said there had been difficulties establishing a tribunal of inquiry when he had been attorney general and added he could not direct that prosecutions be brought against gardaí involved in the attempts to frame the McBrearty family.

"I have at all stages done my best to ensure that the truth came out about Frank McBrearty. When I was attorney general I found that the counsel I had appointed, including Patrick McEntee SC, were reporting to me difficulties establishing what the State's fundamental attitude was, where the truth lay in respect of all the conflicting accounts. I had considerable difficulty and had to write a number of letters in order to persuade the Garda authorities to yield up that material to me.

"And as attorney general as well, when John O'Donoghue came to the conclusion that he would like to have a public inquiry, I was faced with a difficulty that the Director of Public Prosecutions had mounted a number of trials on indictment which would end up before juries. And I was advised that you couldn't have a public tribunal of inquiry functioning into matters where jury trials were pending."

On the McBrearty family's legal costs, the Minister said he could not hand them a "blank cheque" to guarantee their legal costs at the Morris tribunal regardless of whether they co-operated with it or not.

"The McBreartys' rights are being 100 per cent upheld by the tribunal and in the most ringing terms. I am asking them to send in their lawyers. They will be paid promptly and if it's a question of the number of lawyers, I will deal with that as well."

He was "determined to bring about a radical change in the way An Garda Síochána is managed and radical change in the discipline in An Garda Síochána".

"I am the Minister who is doing this. Most of my critics had responsibility and did absolutely nothing to address these issues when these implosions of discipline, conspiracies to frame people and these miscarriages of justice took place on their watch. So they should be very careful before they criticise me," he said.

A Fine Gael spokesman said Mr McDowell was "clearly feeling the pressure".

He said the gravity of the situation in Donegal first came to light in June 1997.