Taoiseach ‘wouldn’t last five minutes’ if rape allegations case involved Fine Gael

Taoiseach Enda Kenny claimed his position would be untenable if the allegations of rape and cover-up made by Belfast woman Maíria Cahill had involved Fine Gael.

“I wouldn’t last five minutes in this position,” he said.

There were sharp exchanges when Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin raised the controversy over allegations by Ms Cahill of rape by a senior IRA figure and a cover-up by Sinn Féin.

Mr Martin called for a debate on the issue and the response of Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams to Ms Cahill's allegations.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny said the Oireachtas justice committee should deal with the issue.

Mr Adams said he had no objection to the Oireachtas looking at any allegation of abuse, particularly child abuse, but he sharply criticised both the Taoiseach and Mr Martin for failing to approach him “and ask me for my version of these events”.

Mr Kenny, who meets Ms Cahill today, said: “Were I standing in this position, where I had to sit in the knowledge of somebody who had raped a woman, a member of my party, and were I to attend and speak to that person, or in the knowledge that that person had her abuser or her rapist brought before her, I wouldn’t last five minutes in this position.”

Hitting out at Mary Lou McDonald, he added: “You can’t have blind allegiance from your deputy leader saying ‘I believe Gerry fully and completely. I can give you a categoric guarantee that there is no cover-up within the Sinn Féin party or within the IRA’.”

Precedent

Sinn Féin justice spokesman Pádraig Mac Lochlainn warned Minister for Justice

Frances Fitzgerald

that if Ms Cahill’s case was dealt with by the justice committee, “the precedent you set in this case will be the measure” of how all cases were dealt with.

He accused Ms Fitzgerald of “inconsistency” and of being “politically opportunistic” by commenting on Ms Cahill’s allegations, when she had refused to comment on allegations of murder and cover-up in the Garda malpractice controversies because of an independent review.

He also said neither the Minister nor the Taoiseach would meet families who alleged Garda cover-up in murder and other serious cases. He said the Minister had to be consistent.

He added that the justice committee did not deal with individual cases because there was a legal process involved and he warned that if Ms Cahill’s case was dealt with by the committee, “I will be insisting on all of these families coming before the committee”.

Ms Fitzgerald replied that what he said was a “manipulation of the comments I made”.