Nazi comments may be 'ill-chosen', says brother

A brother of the President, Ms McAleese, has said her comparison of the treatment of Jews in Nazi Germany with the way Catholics were treated in the North of Ireland may have been "ill-chosen".

Mr Damien Leneghan was referring to remarks made by Mrs McAleese on RTÉ's Morning Ireland programme on Thursday.

She said that the Nazis had given their children an irrational hatred of the Jews in the same way some people in Northern Ireland had transmitted to their children an irrational hatred of Catholics.

Mrs McAleese should, perhaps, have balanced her statement, he said, so that certain sections of the community were not offended by it, but he believed her comments were well-intended. "I would think her intentions were the best, maybe the analogy was ill-chosen, particularly in light of what is happening in the North," he said.

"Perhaps a more balanced view should have been presented in extending the sentence that little bit extra, if that's what she needed to do to make it a balanced statement so people wouldn't take exception to it."

Mr Leneghan was speaking on 2FM's Gerry Ryan show yesterday. He said that people such as his sister who worked for peace often found themselves in situations where they were dealing with people who were "overly sensitive" or, he believed, "sometimes looking for something to be sensitive for".

He also felt that certain sections of the media were attempting to engender an inflated sense of outrage over the remarks and were being "a bit mischievous, really, to twist things".

He had not spoken to Mrs McAleese in relation to her comments.